The Polish Officer

stations in Cracow, Lodz, Poznan—all the major cities. Operational sections included sabotage, propaganda, communications— couriers and secret mail—and an intelligence service. “You,” she said to de Milja, “are being considered for a senior position in the latter.” She stubbed out her cigarette, lit a fresh one.

“Of course it is folly to say anything in this country in the singular form—we are God’s most plural people and losing wars doesn’t change that. There are, in fact, undergrounds, run by the entire spectrum of political parties: the Communists, the Nationalists, the Catholic Nationalists, the Peasant Party, and so on. The Jews are attempting to organize in their own communities, also subject to political division. Still, the ZWZ is more than ninety percent of the effort and will likely remain so.

“But, whatever name it’s done under, we have several months of hard, dirty fighting ahead of us. We now estimate that the French, with England’s help, are going to need six months to overrun Germany. It’s our job to survive in the interim, and keep the national damage at the lowest possible level. When Germany’s finished off, it will be up to the League of Nations to pry the U.S.S.R. out of Poland and push it back to the August ’39 borders. This will require diplomacy, patience, and perhaps divine intervention—Stalin cares for nothing but brute force. There will be claims for Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Lithuanian sovereignty, the Jews will want restrictive laws repealed—it won’t ever be what it was before, but that’s maybe not such a bad thing as far as the people in this room are concerned. Any questions?”

“No questions,” de Milja said.

“Right now,” she continued, “we have two problems: the Polish people are in a state of mourning—how could the country be beaten so badly? And we lack explosives, incendiaries, and medicines for the partisan effort. We’re waiting to be supplied by air from Paris, but nothing’s happened yet. They make promises, then more promises. Meanwhile all we can do is insist, and not lose faith.”

Colonel Broza opened a dossier and glanced through it. He was barely five and a half feet tall, with massive shoulders, receding curly hair, and a pugnacious face. When he put on reading glasses, he looked like a peasant turned into a chess master which, the way de Milja heard it, wasn’t so far from the truth.

“Aren’t you something to Eugeniusz Ostrow?”

“Nephew, sir.”

“Which side?”

“My mother’s family.”

“Ah. The countess.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your uncle . . .” The colonel tried not to laugh. “You must forgive me, I shouldn’t . . . Wasn’t there a formal dinner? A trade minister’s wife, something about a goat?”

“A sheep, I believe it was, sir.”

“In diplomatic sash.”

“Yes, sir.”

The colonel pinched the bridge of his nose. “And then . . . a cook, wasn’t she?”

“A laundress, sir.”

“My God, yes! He married her.”

“A large, formal wedding, sir.”

The woman called Agata cleared her throat.

“Yes, of course, you’re right. You were at Jagiello university?”

“I was.”

“In mathematics?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How’d you do?”

“Very poorly. Tried to follow in my father’s footsteps, but—”

“Tossed out?”

“Not quite. Almost.”

“And then?”

“My uncles helped me get a commission in the army, and an assignment to the military intelligence service, and they sent me off to study cartography.”

“Where was that?”

“First at staff college, then at the French military academy, Saint-Cyr.”

“Three years, it says here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you speak the language.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And German?”

“My father’s from Silesia, I spent time there when I was growing up. My German’s not too bad, I would say.”

Colonel Broza turned over a page, read for a moment. “Vyborg recommends you,” he said. “I’m going to run the ZWZ intelligence service, I need somebody to handle special operations—to work with all the sections. You’ll report directly to me, but not too often. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know Captain Grodewicz?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Spend a little while with him. He’s going to run the ZO unit.”

“Sir?”

“Zwiazek Odwety. Reprisal. You understand?”

It snowed, early in November, and those who read signs and portents in the weather saw malevolence in it. The Germans had lost no time stealing Polish coal, the open railcars rattled ceaselessly across the Oder bridges into ancient, warlike Prussia. The men who ran the coal companies in ancient, warlike Prussia were astonished at how much money they made in this way—commercial logic had always been based on buying a little lower, selling a little higher. But buying for virtually nothing, well, perhaps the wife ought to have the diamond leaf-pin after all. Hitler was scary, he gave these huge, towering, patriotic speeches on the radio, that meant war for God’s sake, and war ruined business, in the long run, and worse. But this, this wasn’t exactly war—this was a form of mercantile heaven, and who got hurt? A few Poles?

The wind blew down from Russia, howled at the windows, piled snow against the door, found every crack, every chip and flaw, and came looking for you in your house. The old people started to die. “This is war!” they shouted in France, but no planes came. Perhaps next week.

Cautiously, from a distance, Captain de Milja tried to keep an eye on his family. He knew where one of the maids lived, and waited for her at night. “Your father is a saint,” the woman said at her kitchen table. “Your mother and your sister are in Hungary, safe, away from the murderers. Your father managed it—I can guess how, there’s barely a zloty in the house these days.”

“What is he doing?”

“He will not leave, he will not go to the country, he will not admit that anything has changed,” the woman said. “Will not.” She shook her head, respect and apprehension mixed together. “He reads and writes, teaches his classes. He is a rock—” She called de Milja by a childhood pet name and the captain looked at his knees. He took a sheaf of zloty notes out of his pocket and laid it on the table. The maid gave him a wry look: How do I explain this?

“Don’t talk about it. Just go to the black market, put something extra on the table, he won’t notice.”

He had the woman turn out her oil lamp, they sat in the dark for a time, listening to the wind whine against the old brick, then he whispered good-bye and slid out the door into the night. Because of the curfew he went doorway to doorway, alert for the sound of German patrol cars. It could be done—anything could be done—but you had to think it through, you had to concentrate. A life lived in flight from the police, a life of evasion, had the same given as always, it hadn’t changed in centuries: they could make a thousand mistakes, you couldn’t make one. Once upon a time, only criminals figured that out. By November 1939, every man, woman, and child in Poland knew it.

Something had to be done. De Milja met with his directorate in Room 9—he was living in a servant’s garret in