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By Root 993 0

out when it was over, I wanted to give the Russians something. It was snowing. I found a Russian soldier sitting on a pile of rubble. He was eating bread. He had only this piece of bread. He saw me, a boy, and he gave me half the bread. We didn’t say a word, we sat there chewing the bread. Black Russian bread. He kept smiling at me. Finally he said, ‘I must go. Comrade Stalin has asked us to keep right on to Berlin.’ And he picked up his rifle and went.”

“And the commissars and the secret police came after him,” Inge said. “They haven’t picked up their rifles and gone away, have they?”

Miernik opened his eyes. “No,” he said. “Those people are still there.”

“I should think that you’d want to be with them, those wonderful human beings,” Inge said. “You could be a part of the earth, too.”

Miernik stared at her. There was no expression in his face at all. He took off his glasses and threw them against the wall. The lenses broke.

“I am going to dance,” Miernik said.

He staggered over to the phonograph and started it. Still wearing his coat and vest, dark stains of vodka on his buttoned chest, he began to dance. The room shook, he laughed. He pulled Ilona off the floor. Her black hair swung like a curtain. He placed her on his shoulder and began to spin. She straightened her legs and shrieked like a child on a carnival ride; she put her cheek on top of his head and her hair tangled around both their faces. Miernik was shouting in Polish, his voice loud at first, then blown out by laughter and loss of breath. He fell with Ilona on top of him. She lay there for a moment, then kissed him on the forehead and got up. She stood over him with her legs apart, smiling down on him.

Miernik lay on the floor. He still had no breath. In a moment he gathered enough to shout, “Ilona Ivanovna, I forgive you!”

He sucked in more breath and cried, pointing his finger at each of us in turn, “Léon Léonovich, I forgive you! Hassan Hassanevich, I forgive you! Paul Alexandrevich, I forgive you! Nigel Andreevich, I forgive you!”

Miernik staggered to his feet and lifted Inge off the sofa. She tried to pull away. He lifted her by the waist so that her face was in front of his own. “Even you, Inge—what was your father’s name?”

“Peter.”

“Inge Pyotrovna, I forgive you!”

The doorbell rang. “That must be Kalash,” Miernik said. “I will go and forgive him.”

He opened the door to a Swiss policeman. “We have a complaint,” the policeman said. “There is too much noise.”

Miernik would have embraced the policeman, but Brochard stepped between them. “The noise will stop at once,” Brochard said.

“Papers,” the policeman said.

Brochard reached for his pocket. “Not yours. His,” the policeman said.

“This gentleman is a functionary of WRO,” Brochard said. “He has a diplomatic identity card.”

Miernik reached over Brochard’s shoulder and gave the card to the policeman. The policeman wrote in his book and gave it back.

“There will be a formal complaint unless the noise stops,” he said. “I advise you to put this man to bed.”

“Je vous pardonne,” Miernik said.

Brochard went into the hall with the policeman and shut the door. Miernik sat down on the floor. His head sagged. He leaped to his feet and flung open the door. Brochard and the policeman were walking up and down the hallway, deep in conversation. The smile on the policeman’s face went out at the sight of Miernik.

“Do you speak German?” Miernik said to the policeman. The cop stared at him. Brochard let go of the policeman’s elbow and threw up his hands.

“Of course you do,” Miernik said, in German. “You smell like a German. Like gasoline. Gasoline burns. Remember that, you damned machine.”

“You will come with me,” said the policeman.

“I have diplomatic immunity,” Miernik said.

“You cannot insult the Swiss police.”

“I have just done so. I don’t like the color of your uniform.”

Collins and I pulled him back into the room. He struggled with us. Ilona put her palm on his cheek. “Tad,” she said, “come and sit with me.” He followed her to the sofa.

Inge was putting on her coat. “He’s cracked my ribs,