Mila 18 - Leon Uris [3]
“Maybe she’ll be better off if she doesn’t fight.”
Ervin looked at his watch nervously. “Where the hell is Susan? I’ve got to get this stuff to the lab.” He picked up his Speed Graphic and jiggled the flash bulbs in his pocket.
“Chris, do you think England and France will help us?”
Chris kept reading the dispatches. “When are you and Susan getting married?”
“I can’t keep her still long enough to ask her. If she’s not at the orphanage she’s at a Zionist meeting. Did you ever hear of six meetings a week? Only Jews can talk so much. So I’m appointed to the executive council just so I can get dates to see her. Momma asks, are you coming to dinner tonight? She’s made potato latkes for you, special.”
“Potato latkes? I’ll get there between stops.”
Susan Geller appeared in the doorway. She was as short and homely as Ervin was. Squat, devoid of almost all features which make women pretty. Her hair was pulled back straight and flat and wrapped into a knot under her nurse’s cap. Her hands were large and knobby from the life of lifting sick people and changing bedpans, but the moment she spoke the ugliness faded. Susan Geller was one of the kindest creatures on the earth.
“You’re a half hour late,” Ervin greeted her.
“Hi, honey,” Chris said.
“I like you better,” she answered to Chris.
Ervin grabbed a batch of negatives, film, bulbs, and his camera. “It’s all yours,” he said to Chris.
“Can you stop by the President’s Palace? See Anton. Maybe he can fix us up for five minutes with Smigly-Rydz. He may be changing his tune now that the Russian German non-aggression pact is official.”
The phone rang. Ervin snatched it off the hook with his free hand. “Hello ... Just a minute.” He held his hand over the mouthpiece. “Wait outside,” he said to Susan. “I’ll bright there.”
Susan and Chris blew good-by kisses to each other.
“Who is it, Rosy?”
“Deborah’s husband,” he answered, and handed him the phone and left.
“Why, hello, Paul. How are you?”
“I was asking the same question. I was just saying to Deborah how much we and the children have missed you.”
“Things have been pretty hectic.”
“I can imagine.”
“I do owe you an apology for not calling. How ... uh ... is Deborah?”
“Fine, just fine. Why don’t you break away for dinner tomorrow?”
Chris was finding it unbearable to keep the masquerade. Every time he saw Paul and Deborah together, every time he thought of them sharing a bed, the revulsion in him grew.
“I’m afraid it’s impossible. I may have to send Rosy to Krakow and—”
Paul Bronski’s voice lowered. “It is rather important that you come. I should like to see you on a pressing matter. Say, seven.”
Chris was scared. Paul’s tone had the authority of command. Perhaps Paul Bronski himself would call the showdown that Deborah had avoided. Maybe it was all fantasy. They were good friends. Why not invite him to dinner?
“I’ll be there,” Chris said.
Chapter Three
Journal Entry
I HAVE STUDIED THE trend of the behavior of the ethnic Germans in Austria and Czechoslovakia. They have done a tremendous job in undermining in advance of the German armies. They have certainly been raising all sorts of hell in Danzig. Just before the Austrian “Anschluss” they became strangely quiet. This past week their activity here has all but stopped. Could this be on orders? Is this the lull before the storm? Is history about to repeat?
Everyone I know is being called up into the reserve. Smigly-Rydz means to fight. Polish temper and history indicate they will.
ALEXANDER BRANDEL
“We Poles unfortunately got ourselves located between Russia and Germany. The traffic between the two has been busy,” Dr. Paul Bronski, dean of the College of Medicine, said to an auditorium overcrowded with students and faculty. “We have been trampled. We have even ceased to exist, yet Polish nationalism fires a breed of patriot that has always made Poland return.”
A spontaneous burst of applause halted his speech.
“Poland is in trouble again. Our two friends are restless. The situation