Mila 18 - Leon Uris [216]
Marinski bolted into the room, crying semi-coherently, “Stop them! They’re taking our families!”
“Stop shouting. Shouting will do no good. Get out there and delay Eden from coming in.”
Boris locked the door and ran to the phone. First Schreiker, then the Militia. The line was dead. He clicked it desperately. Nothing. Presser rubbed his throbbing temples and slipped to the window. Women and children, families of the Civil Authority, were being prodded out into the street at gun point. A ruckus in the outer office. Authoritative knocks at his door.
Stall ... play for time ... debate ... stall.
He unlocked the door. Simon Eden stood before him. Black-eyed; long, wiry frame; intense. Simon hovered over the smaller man, shoved the door wide, and looked around the office. He stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him, shutting out Marinski, who was too terrified to protest the abduction of his wife and daughter.
Boris backed up, bringing everything within him to the fore to maintain control and not show his fear. “I protest this humiliation of the Civil Authority,” he said.
Simon ignored him; his eyes showed almost boredom.
“You have no right to barge in here and kidnap our families. You have no right to treat us like collaborators.” Boris prodded to find a point of argument.
Simon would not argue. “History will pass judgment of the Civil Authority,” he said dryly.
Careful, Presser said to himself, careful. Don’t anger him. “You must realize,” Boris fenced, “that I have no personal authorization to grant you recognition.”
“Just recognize what comes out of the end of this muzzle. It is quite simple. We have your families. We want your treasury.”
Beads of perspiration popped out on Boris Presser’s upper lip. To refuse would be to admit that he was truly a puppet of the Germans, for in fact Joint Jewish Forces now represented the authority in the ghetto. But if he did recognize Eden, the Germans would eventually punish him when they returned. Boris was in a vise. He opened his arms benevolently. “Surely, Simon, as a man who knows organizational structure, you are aware that I do not control our very insignificant treasury. I have no way of acting.”
“Find a way,” Simon interrupted. “In an hour we shall deposit three corpses at the doorsteps of this building. One will be a member of your own family. Each hour thereafter, three more hostages will be shot until you deliver two million zlotys to Joint Forces.”
Marinski, eavesdropping, burst in, “Give him the damned money!”
Boris was dying to drink a glass of water to relieve his parched throat, but he knew that if he lifted a glass his hand would spill it with trembling. “Let me discuss this with my board,” Boris said, continuing the role of a reasonable man. “There are many touchy legal problems. Mind you, I am certain they can be solved, but this is rather sudden. Let us thrash it out. We will come up with a suitable compromise.”
Simon Eden looked down at him with final disgust. “You have no alternative,” he said, and before Boris Presser could speak again, Simon left.
An hour later the two million zlotys were turned over to Simon, half from the denuded treasury and half confiscated as ransom from personal fortunes.
“I was in favor of dumping you at the Stawki Gate with Piotr Warsinski,” Simon said impassively. “But Alexander Brandel is a dreamer. He believes in the poetic justice of making you and your people burrow into the ground and live like rats ... as the rest of us have.”
The Jewish Fighters released the hostages. Boris Presser’s action ended any further use the Germans may have had for the Civil Authority.
Boris Presser and the rest who had served as message boys of the Germans were cast loose to spend the rest of their