Mila 18 - Leon Uris [63]
ALEXANDER BRANDEL
Gabriela Rak opened the door for Alexander Brandel at her flat on the Square of the Three Crosses.
“Come in, Alex.” She closed the door behind him and took his overcoat and cap.
“Is he here?”
Gabriela nodded and pointed to the balcony.
“Before I see him ...”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Alex. Some days he paces like an animal and curses. Other days, like today, he sits and sulks and drinks without a word. Yesterday and today he has been out seeing people. I don’t know what for. He won’t confide in me.”
“I know,” Alex said.
“I have never known anyone could take defeat so hard, Alex. He has such a fierce pride—it seems as though he is taking it upon himself to suffer for thirty million Poles.”
She walked to the french doors and opened them. Andrei was looking aimlessly out at the battered ruins. “Andrei,” she called a half dozen times before she got his attention. “Alexander Brandel is here.”
He walked into the room. He was unshaven and bleary-eyed from too much drinking and too little sleep. He went directly to the liquor cabinet and poured himself some vodka.
“I’ll go fix you some tea, Alex,” Gabriela said nervously.
“No,” Andrei ordered, “you stay. I want you to hear the great dissertations of Zionist logic. Pearls of wisdom are about to drop like spring rain. We should have a bucket so we could catch them all.” He downed the vodka and poured himself another. Gabriela uncomfortably edged into a chair while Alexander walked to Andrei and took the glass out of his hand and set it down.
“Why weren’t you at the executive council meeting today?”
“Haven’t you heard? There are no more Bathyrans. Directive twenty-two by order of the Kommissar of Warsaw.”
“It was a terribly important meeting. We have to set up mechanisms to go underground.”
Andrei smacked his lips and clapped his hands together and walked to Gabriela. “Gaby, shall I tell you what they said today, verbatim? Let me see now. Susan Geller cried the loudest because the war gave her lots and lots of new orphans and our girl Susy is going to take them all in, each and every one. So tomorrow Herr Schreiker will issue a directive outlawing orphans. But! Don’t underestimate us. Our Alexander Brandel will bypass the directive ... he is a wily man. He finds loopholes in everything. ‘From now on,’ declares Alex, ‘we will call the orphans novitiates and the Bathyran Orphanage will become St. Alexander’s Convent.’ Now then, Tolek Alterman sprang to his feet. ‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘I will increase the production of the farm tenfold because it is living Zionism.’ And then Ana ... dear old Ana. ‘I would like to report that the Krakow group is singing “Solidarity Forever.” ’ ”
“Have you finished?”
“No, Alex. I’ve had a few meetings of my own.”
“So I hear. Very interesting plans you’ve made.”
“What plans?” Gabriela said.
“Why don’t you tell her, Andrei?” Andrei turned his back. “No? Well, then I’ll tell her. He is planning to take fifty of our best people and leave Warsaw.”
Andrei spun around. “Let Alex and the rest of that pack of idiots continue their debating societies while the Germans squeeze the life out of them. Yes, I’m taking fifty people and I’m going over the border to Russia and get arms and return and write a few little directives of my own on the Germans’ supply lines.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” she demanded.
“I told you to go to Krakow with the Americans. Well, I still have your papers. It will be my present to you when I leave.”
“But why didn’t you tell me!”
“So you’d team up with him and schlogg me to death with arguments?”
“No one is going to argue, Andrei,” Alex said. “Here it is, straight and proper. You are forbidden to do what you plan.”
“Listen to him! The new Kommissar has issued a directive.”
“You are not going to take fifty of our best people. We need them