Mila 18 - Leon Uris [48]
The bombing raids had increased in intensity as the German armies moved in on Warsaw. The city was determined to fight on. At the orphanage, Susan Geller had sent out an emergency call for help to move the facilities underground so they would at least have food, medicine, and sleeping places during the air raids. Gabriela worked alongside Deborah, Susan, Rachael, and Alex and Sylvia Brandel through the night and all the next day, helping move supplies underground, catching only a few naps whenever they could. She returned to the Embassy. Things had slowed down, and Thompson sent her home again.
She had reached a state of numbness. She looked up at her flat from the street. It was so lonely there. Several buildings near and on the square had been hit by bombs. She found herself doing what she always did when she was lonesome—she walked north to Leszno Street and climbed the four flights to Andrei’s flat. As always, the door was open. Just as she arrived the air-raid sirens began. She stood by the window, strangely fascinated by the leaping flames from the slums only a mile away. Some of the fire appeared to be coming from the Old Town. What a tragedy if anything happened to the old square, she thought.
An hour earlier the bombers had started the incendiary attacks to light their way over Warsaw during the night. This time the raiders were hitting acres of workers’ homes in Praga across the river.
On the streets below she could hear the confusion as firemen rushed to the slum area, where the houses were so tightly packed and inflammable that the fire could spread all over Warsaw if not contained quickly.
Dull booms from Praga.
There was neither a Polish gun nor a Polish plane to stop the Germans. But the raiders kept coming back to smash the will of the people to resist.
She shut the window and taped the blackout paper into place, then lit the room with a single lamp beside the bed and stretched out to read herself to sleep with Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.
A knock on the door startled her.
“Come in.”
Alexander Brandel entered the room. She was glad he had come. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I went to the Embassy and your place first.”
“Is everything all right at the orphanage?”
“Fine, fine. The children are so wonderful. We try to keep it like a game. I think they are smarter than we are.”
“How is it outside?”
“The whole northern end is burning. Praga is catching hell. So, Mayor Starzynski says to fight on—so, we fight on. Could I have some cognac?”
Gabriela took a bottle from the cabinet and looked at Alex with suspicion. He was mostly a teetotaler, except when Andrei was around. He drank it down very quickly. He coughed as the fire hit his stomach. Perhaps just the air raid, Gabriela thought. It is enough to make anyone nervous. Then Alex began to mop his brow. There was something serious on his mind.
“What is it?” Gabriela said.
“Andrei is in Warsaw.”
She closed her eyes and held her stomach as though she had been hit. She tried to ask questions, but her lips would not form words.
“Let me first say that he is all right.”
“You swear ... you swear it now?”
“I swear it. He has been wounded, but it is not serious. Please sit down.”
“Where was he wounded, Alex?”
“I tell you it’s not serious and I beg you to be calm.”
“Where is he?”
“Will you please get control of yourself?”
“Where is he!”
“Gabriela ... please ...”
“You’re lying! He’s been hurt.” And then she fought herself into control. “All right, tell me.”
“God only knows how he was able to get back to Warsaw. It was a miracle. No one will ever know what he has been through.”
“Alex ... I beg you ... the truth. How badly is he hurt?”
“His heart is broken, Gabriela.”
“Where is he?”
“At the bottom of the stairs.”
She lunged for the door, screaming his name. Alex caught her and clamped his