Mila 18 - Leon Uris [126]
Rachael developed a superhuman sharpness for sound. From four flights up she could hear the door of the lobby open and close. Each time it did she would walk to the door of the flat and lean against it and begin to count footsteps.
It took sixty steps to get to Andrei’s flat.
She would count. Sometimes the sound of footsteps would stop on the first landing or the second or third. She could tell if they were climbing stairs or walking in a corridor.
She could tell if their sound was taking someone up or down.
The ninth day.
She washed her face with cold water and fixed her hair and sat by the window. The door opened and closed in the lobby. Rachael listened and began her count.
... ten ... eleven ... twelve ...
The footsteps had reached the first landing.
... sixteen ... seventeen ... eighteen ...
She was able to distinguish between footsteps as they rose higher. The flat, weary shuffle was a man. The sharp sound was a woman’s heels. The soft sound, the child.
... thirty-three ... thirty-four ... thirty-five ...
Two men! Two men walking up slowly. Everyone walked slowly these days.
... forty-three ... forty-four ... forty-five ...
Her heart began to race. Two men on the third-floor landing. Oh God! Please don’t let them go into a flat down there. Please, God! Please make them come up to this floor. Please, God! I have never heard two men come up to the fourth floor! Please! Please!
... fifty-one ... fifty-two ... fifty-three ...
Rachael backed away.
... fifty-nine ... sixty
The door opened
Andrei walked in ... someone behind him.
“Wolf!”
He walked in slowly and took off his cap. Rachael pitched forward into his arms and fought off the consuming blackness that took hold of her.
For many, many moments she was too terrified to look up. Was this another dream?
No ... no ... no dream. She looked up. He was fine. Just a scar on his cheek. And then she allowed herself the luxury of breaking wide open in convulsive tears.
“Rachael,” he whispered, “I am all right. Please don’t cry. I am all right. ...”
Andrei left them, closing the door behind him.
Alex and Sylvia sat in their room, ghost-faced, drained of life. Neither of them had spoken a word for an hour since Wolf had left to go to Rachael.
Andrei knocked softly and entered.
“Dr. Glazer examined him. None of the dog bites are infected. He’ll be all right.”
The bit of information brought forth a new burst of crying from Sylvia. And then the baby shrieked and Sylvia picked him up and clutched him to her breast and rocked him back and forth, oblivious of Alex’s words of consolation.
Alex nodded to Andrei to leave Sylvia alone. He tiptoed from the room, both of them retreating to his office. Alex began berating himself.
“Stop sniveling,” Andrei demanded. “He is a courageous boy.”
“Where is he now?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Should I?”
“He is with his girl.”
“His girl?”
“My niece.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.” Alex began berating himself again for being such a bad father that his own son would not confide his love life.
“Shut up, Alex, the boy is alive and safe.”
Alex kept rambling. “All these eight horrible days I said it was right to get Wolf out. We have bought freedom for our people before. Rodel cost us nearly two thousand when they took him to the Pawiak Prison, and he isn’t even one of ours. The Communists didn’t even pay me back for Rodel’s release. It was all right, buying Wolf out. We would have done the same for any of our people.”
“You want to hear it, I’ll tell you!” Andrei raged. “It was not all right! You should have left your son to die before crawling in front of Max Kleperman!”
“Don’t talk like that, Andrei!”
Andrei snatched him from his chair and grabbed his lapels and shook him as though he were weightless. “Grovel! Beg Max Kleperman for mercy! That three thousand dollars could have bought guns to storm the Gestapo House and take your son out like a dignified human being!”
Alex fell against him and wept, but Andrei slung him into his chair. “God damn you, Alex! God damn you! Open your goddamned precious