Mila 18 - Leon Uris [151]
Andrei stood over him, thinner and wearier. He studied Paul. Paul had aged with a sudden sagging of his face muscles. The thin face was prune-like, he shook with constant tension, and his fingers were yellow with tobacco stains.
They changed amenities without feeling.
Paul took out a cigarette and went through one-armed contortions of lighting it “This business of arms smuggling and underground press is putting the entire population in grave danger,” he said.
“Go on.”
“No matter what you think about us on the Civil Authority, we try our best under very limited conditions. If your activities increase it will only antagonize the Germans.”
“Shut up, Paul! For Christ sake—antagonize the Germans. Do you think this death on the streets is a result of any underground? Are you so damned naive after two years of this as to think the population is in any less danger whether there is an underground or not?”
Bronski shook his head. “I told Presser it was useless to argue with you. Andrei, there is no magic formula for getting rid of the Germans. Your activities are costing us millions of zlotys in fines and the lives of hundreds in reprisals.”
“And what about the fines and the executions before the underground existed?”
“I’m trying to do the best I can,” Paul whined.
Andrei could not even bring himself to hate Paul Bronski. Once, before the war, he had had a reluctant admiration for the penetrating mind and sharp wit that could run him through mental acrobatics. The thing before him was a mumbling shell.
How very strange, Andrei thought. Little Stephan Bronski had begun as a runner between the orphanage and the Self-Help headquarters over a year ago and increased his sphere of operation each month. The youngster idolized Wolf Brandel, who taught him the routes around the ghetto over rooftops, through courtyards and basements, and all the secret hiding places. Stephan pressed to be given more responsible missions, even begged to be allowed to go to the Aryan side. Stephan was not yet thirteen years old. How can a boy demand to walk like a man and his own father crawl through the mud?
“Andrei, think what you will of me, but the people here only want to survive. You know that, Andrei—survive. The best way to live is through the Civil Authority. No one has answered your call to arms, Andrei. Your way would be mass suicide. Andrei—now listen—Boris Presser and I have been negotiating with Koenig. Koenig is a reasonable man and he can maneuver Schreiker. Koenig promises that if we can get the underground to stop its activities they will make a settlement with us on rations, medicine, and the disposition of the labor force.”
“Good God, Paul. Can you believe your own words?”
“It’s our only chance!”
There was nothing more to be said. Andrei could not mask his contempt. He handed Paul Bronski a blindfold. “I don’t know anything about an underground.”
Bronski took the blindfold. “You’ll have to tie it on ... I can’t do it with one hand.”
Ervin Rosenblum worked in the musty room below Mila 19, sorting the notes of the Good Fellowship Club. A rap on the false packing crate which served as an entrance made him douse the lights and freeze. Ana Grinspan entered.
“Susan has just come back,” she said. “Get up to your room.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“Go on.”
Ervin felt his way through an aisle lined with packing cases. In the main office on the first floor he saw everyone staring. Alexander Brandel stood by the door of his office, shaking his head.
Ervin raced up the stairs to the second floor carefully. The rail was gone, chopped up for firewood weeks earlier. Down the corridor to that cell which he shared with his wife and mother.
Momma Rosenblum lay on a cot beneath a pile of quilts. It was icy. There was no