Mila 18 - Leon Uris [31]
The monuments of Pilsudski riding his horse, Stefan riding his horse, Casimir riding his horse, Poniatowski riding his horse, and Chopin merely standing were smothered with fresh-cut flowers in the Polish tradition of reverence to her heroes.
Over Pilsudski Square, Warsaw’s ground for political and military rallies, stood eleven massive columns forming an entrance to the Saxony Gardens, and in its center the eternal flame to the unknown soldier. This, too, was surrounded with cut flowers.
After church the rich went to the swanky Bruhl House and ate ices and sipped tea after their hour with God, and the poor stared at them from the street through the long, low windows. The rich did not seem to mind.
Not all of Warsaw was so reverent.
The Jews had celebrated their Sabbath a day earlier, and while their Christian brethren purged their sins the Jews quietly circumvented the stringent blue laws. The center of Jewish gangsterism on Wolynska Street smuggled and thieved, the textile workshops on Gensia bartered for raw material, and the stores of the building-material owners that lined Grzybow Square could be opened with the proper combination of knocks.
In the mixed Christian and Jewish quarters of the smart Sienna and Zlota streets, Jewish professionals and businessmen let their neighbors know they were good Poles and joined in the promenading.
And the bells pealed.
Everything seemed quite in place for a Sunday in Warsaw. That is, if you did not go near the tension-filled ministries or the rumor-riddled lobbies of the Polonia and Bristol and Europa. Or if you were not among those who stopped before the President’s Palace and watched and waited for word of a miracle which was not coming. Or if you were not in your home before the radios bringing invoices from the BBC and Berlin and America and Moscow. For under the normalcy, everyone seemed to know that the bells of Warsaw could well be sounding the death knell of Poland.
The meeting of the Bathyran Council was held in the flat of its general secretary, Alexander Brandel. His place faced the Great Synagogue on Tlomatskie Street and was conveniently near the Writers’ Club, which was the meeting place of the journalists, actors, writers, artists, and intellectuals who admitted they were Jewish. The Jewish journalists, actors, writers, artists, and intellectuals who did not admit they were Jewish met in another club a few blocks away.
A dozen routine matters, left unresolved during Andrei’s absence, were dispensed with, then the discussion turned to what they should do in the event of war.
“War will bring us to terrible times,” Alex said. “I do not think it is too premature to set up on an emergency footing. Perhaps even think about what we will do, God forbid, if the Germans come.”
Ana Grinspan, the liaison secretary, was up first. “The very first thing we should do is close ranks as never before. We must establish a system of communications between all our chapters in case of German occupation.”
Andrei was looking wistfully out of the window. When Ana began to talk, he turned and looked at her. She was still very attractive, he thought. She had been his girl before Gabriela. Funny, she is a lot like Gabriela. Ana was twenty-five and very Polish in appearance. She lived in Krakow and was from an upper-middle-class family. Most half Jews went to one of two excesses—an abnormal hate of their Jewishness or the embracing of it with an abnormal passion. When Ana discovered her father’s Jewishness she became a rabid Zionist. It was this obsession that cooled Andrei towards her. There are times when a woman must be a woman and to hell with Zionism. It’s too much to hear it going to bed and waking up. At any rate, their parting was completely civilized.
Ana spoke for ten minutes. No arguments about her point of view. Unity forever.
Tolek Alterman was on his feet. Dear God, please don’t let Tolek get wound up, Andrei thought. But Tolek was wound up. He was distinguished by a head of bushy hair, a leather jacket, and a leftist point of