‘We’re going to get out of here.’
Roza glared at his mask of disarranged dirt.
‘Choose the right side,’ he whispered.
‘What?’
‘There’s going to be another struggle.’ His cracked lips barked out the memory. ‘ Choose the right side.’
Roza yanked her hand free and swung around. She could just make out a T-junction ahead: the tunnel joined another route heading north-south.
‘I’ve made a choice already’ Even though she was worn out and could hardly think straight, she could grasp a basic truth. Mr Lasky used to say that what you believed was everything. It changed who you walked with and where you went. He was right. It had roused a visceral loyalty to those disfigured bodies among the rubble. ‘I’m going north, Otto,’ she gasped. ‘You go south.’
Roza pushed her way through the water, holding on to the mental image of the junction. A small flame burst behind her and Roza felt a flash of grief. Not so much for losing her friendship with Otto or for having given him her love. No, she was devastated because she’d told him about the red dress, the green jacket and the shoes. She’d given him her dreams.
Six years later those two tunnels came to another junction in the Mariensztat District when Otto and four men in long coats broke down her front door.
Roza lifted her face off the cell floor. The prisoner with the grey hair was sniggering into her hand, pointing at some fragment of her imagination. The others were like crouched gargoyles on a forsaken church. When Roza had first entered this hell she’d understood, on a primitive level, that to survive she would have to keep soft some part of her heart. Which was why she’d said nothing about her previous friendship with Otto. The revelation could put him in a cell of his own. Association was suspicion. So it was at this juncture of her fidelity to him and his abandonment of her that Roza chose to keep alive her humanity. Whatever power Major Strenk might have over her, she would remain above him, through Otto.
It was only when Roza was in the cage with water thundering upon her, when she was in this, the lowest gutter of human existence, that Roza realised what had really been happening throughout her interrogations: Otto had already told Major Strenk about their shared past. And it was precisely because Roza never referred to it that the major knew Roza could break down and still keep important information to herself; that she might well know how to find the Shoemaker. Otto had been the man behind the questions. From that moment, Otto ceased to exist for Roza. He became Brack.
Chapter Fourteen
Two weeks later Roza was brought back to the interrogation room. There, behind the desk with the small lamp, sat Brack, opening and shutting a drawer. He started asking questions even before Roza crouched on the footstool.
‘Ink. Ink stains. You must have seen stains. Tell me about stains. He was on to something. It was how Roza discovered that Pavel was involved. She’d seen that incredibly black crescent under a thumbnail. She’d found out later that part of Pavel’s role within the Shoemaker organisation was the obtaining of vital supplies. Without wearing gloves, he’d handled a leaking tin.
‘People disappear, Roza,’ he’d said, gripping her hands. ‘They vanish. Accept my silence. It protects you.
His dark eyes had been wide with feeling, his fair hair ruffled. He’d shoved her gently on the bed.
‘Stains,’ repeated Brack.
‘I never saw any.’
Brack opened and shut the drawer, tension gouging out his eye sockets. He had to find a way of breaking her. But there was nothing in the desk. It had to be something worse than the cage. He changed subject.
‘When did you first hear of the Shoemaker?’
‘When I was child.’
‘I want the name.’
‘Mr Lasky He read us stories every- ‘Don’t play with me… Comrade.’ The words left his mouth like fibres spat from one of his cigarettes. ‘I have the power of life and death.’
Roza dared to laugh. He had nothing of the sort. He was wearing Major Strenk’s shoes, that’s all.
‘The Shoemaker,’ he repeated. ‘When did you first learn that your husband was an associate?’
Pavel had told her after she’d swung her legs off the bed. She’d insisted on knowing about the ink. His risk was her risk. He’d thought for a long while first, getting dressed distractedly, confusing the buttons and holes. When he was done he’d put on his coat and thrown Roza’s across the room.
‘I’m going to introduce you to someone. I call him the Threshold.’
It was night. They went to a church that backed on to a railway line. Most of the surrounding buildings were incomplete, the reconstruction slowed by cost and a lack of materials. Heaps of rubble had still not been cleared away Frameless windows cut black squares out of the sky Pavel knocked on a door. After a moment he tried to light a cigarette, giving up after three strikes of a match. After several minutes a bolt slammed back and a man in a cassock pulled them inside, swearing under his breath. He was in his mid thirties. His hair, short and black, gave prominence to a large forehead. He’d shaved roughly leaving small red cuts on his chin and neck.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he snapped.
Pavel drew the priest down the low lit corridor, whispering urgently After listening for a few seconds the priest’s mouth slowly fell open and he swore again. Roza caught their talk.
‘You’re married?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me? If I’d-’
‘I couldn’t. You know the rules.’
‘Rules? You break them all the time.’
‘Look, stick to the point. What do you think?’
The priest drew a hand across his jaw, checking the cuts. Glancing at Roza, he shook his head in disbelief and condemnation.
‘I had to find someone from outside the Friends,’ argued Pavel, frustrated. ‘You agreed. You said we need a sleeper. Someone who can wake the dead and shatter the illusions of many. Someone who can take up where we left off, if I’m caught. Someone who can restructure a new group of Friends. These are your words. You agreed.’
‘Damn it, I thought you meant a man. But a young woman, your wife?’
‘They’ll arrest her anyway If they pick me up, they’ll pick her up.
‘Which is why you shouldn’t have got married.’
‘But I did. Look, they wouldn’t expect her to know anything. Like you, they wouldn’t think I’d tell her.’
‘Have you any idea what these people can do?’ The priest pointed towards Roza as if she was a joint at the butchers. ‘They don’t hand out questionnaires. They-’
‘They’ll do all that anyway.’
‘Oh, fine. That’s all right then. So let’s just-’
‘Excuse me.’ Roza’s soft voice took them by surprise. They’d forgotten she was there. ‘This is my choice. I accept the risk.’ She walked down the corridor to join the conspirators. ‘Think about it: if they believe I’m your sleeper they won’t kill me. I’d be the only one who could lead them to what they want. They’ll keep me alive.’
The priest clawed at his neck, seeming to weigh her femininity and her resistance. She knew too much already At length he murmured, ‘I hope you’re right.’
They moved quietly to the door and the priest drew back the bolt.
‘Will the Shoemaker agree?’ asked Pavel. He wanted to know that the matter was settled.
‘It’s not for him to decide.’ The priest reached for the switch. ‘And he wouldn’t want to know If he did, he might never write another word. It’s our responsibility We decide and we live with the consequences. He writes.’
The priest flicked the light dead. Slowly he opened the door, keeping it ajar by an inch. Leaning towards the
