In this stench I remember the partisans lying side by side under shared blankets with girl couriers and nurses after a nighttime action. Some of the women were offended, but only slightly, by the whispering and ogling. I think mainly they were surprised. That in such a situation a person could think about something like that. The rest were ideally indifferent.
In general, relations with the partisans were good. Although I remember one painful scene on Freta Street in front of the Dominicans. Some women were cursing out some partisans who happened to be passing by. Because of what they had done. In another place (but this is only hearsay) partisans cursed some women. Because when the Germans announced that people could come out with white cloths or kerchiefs and surrender on the Żoliborz viaduct, several women set out. Information about this incident varies. At any rate there was probably more than one such surrender. Or, rather, attempt. One, it seems, was lucky (for those women with the white kerchiefs). Another time, it seems, the Germans shot at them. And maybe it was then that the women retreated in horror. To the nearest building. The partisans slammed the door in their faces, disgusted. Then, it seems, they cursed them but finally let them in. But some of the women were offended in turn. And went to another building.
The business of the key to our apartment (mine, Mother’s, and Stefa’s) at 4 °Chłodna Street kept haunting me. How could they have gone home — how surrender to the Germans — if they had no keys? And in general, how was Mother getting along? And Aunt Józia and Stefa? I had the keys with me. But perhaps Granny Frania and Aunt Limpcia (my mother’s aunt and her daughter) knew something? They lived at 16 Bielańska Street in the basement of an annex behind the Radziwiłł Palace. In their courtyard. With their whole family. They were surely there. So what prevents me from seeing them? Perhaps I’ll manage to make my way farther along Leszno to Żelazna? Anyway, they’re saying that Leszno Street is in our hands — continuously. That you can walk for a kilometer along Leszno through cellars connected by breaks in the walls. In any case — at least to set out. And I did set out. Swen didn’t want to.
And Swen’s mother said, “Don’t go.”
But I insisted.
I started walking.
Rybaki Street. The familiar Staromiejski route. From the slope to the garbage bin, into the hole in the wall. The small courtyard. A leap up to the balcony. Someone’s apartment. A courtyard. Running across a long plank into the window of someone’s apartment. People are sitting there. Women. People. A hole. Crawling through into the darkness among people lying there.
“Oh, Jesus…” That was the wounded.
From the cellar into the courtyard, the gate, a leap, across Mostowa, barricades, with partisans lying prone, firing their machine guns at Praga. An open wooden gate. The cobblestone courtyard. Dark brown. Big. Below, the Gdańsk Cellar. The House at the Sign of the Cats. Here — the second floor. There — the ground floor. Freta. And Długa. Almost straight ahead… I scurried across Długa. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Perhaps something was burning. It was then that I looked at that barricade at the end of Miodowa Street. With the trolley and the airplane. And I raced into Długa Street. Onto its more distant, crooked, serpentine, uneven path. There was a barricade every so often. And it was somewhat dangerous. People warned me. Because at the intersection of Długa and Przejazd, across from the Arsenal, famous for the outbreak of the November uprising,[13] stood an eight-story building occupied by the Hitlerites. They had the whole neighborhood under fire. Długa Street in particular. In front of the Arsenal, on the right of Długa Street, was the intersection with Nalewki, and on the left, almost directly opposite, the end of Bielańska Street. In front of this intersection — a barricade. You ran along the right side coming from the Vistula, because it was safer (more cover). And you ran straight across Długa behind the barricade. You raced through a gate and into the courtyard of a building that almost bordered on or directly bordered on 16 Bielańska. Where Aunt Limpcia lived, or rather Olimpcia, or Olimpia. With her husband, Stach, with Ryszek (my cousin), her brother Ceniek, and my granny Frania, her mother, that is, who called her Olemka. I reached their courtyard through the passageway from Długa. A strange, long yard. Paved with cobblestones. Stretching from the side of Bielańska (right after Tlomackie) and the side of the Radziwiłł Palace (the one which stands today on the center strip of the east-west artery); winding between the picket-fence entrance gate and the apartment house at the front, 16 Bielańska, and the front of the palace, with its circular driveway and three pillars; farther on, the courtyard twisted again, went around the palace from the other side, and opposite it there was a long annex. At the end of this building, just beneath the garden wall at the rear of the palace, right there — I walked quickly, I think I flew, flew up to it and looked into their window. “Aunt!” I yelled, “Aunt Limpcia! Rysiek!”
Aunt Limpcia was preparing soup (barley soup), Rysiek ran out onto the stairs, I think Limpcia’s husband was there, too, in an instant, my uncle, poor Stach, also Stach’s brother Józiek was definitely there. They called to me. I ran down. To them. (They didn’t need any other shelter.)
“And Granny Frania?” I asked.
“Oh,” Aunt Limpcia was stirring the thick barley soup, she was unperturbed. “Granny’s in the palace… in the corridor. It’s crowded there, they have light… Why don’t you go over and see her, oh, when she sees you…”
“And my mother, do you know anything? She stayed on Chłodna. I have the keys. I want to get through to Chłodna.”
“We don’t know a thing. How do you plan to go?”
“Well, I could try Leszno.”
“Oh… don’t even mention it. How? You won’t get through. What do you think? That you’ll get far? To Żelazna? And that there aren’t any Germans at 4 °Chłodna?”
“Well, yes…” I agreed.
“Go along with Rysiek to Granny, he’ll take you there, and I’ll finish cooking the barley soup meanwhile. Do you want some? You’ll get a big helping.”
“Yes, I do…”
“Then go, but Granny will burst out crying…”
We walk over to the palace. We go inside. Across the driveway. Into wide, semicircular, rococo corridors, formerly ballrooms, which lead this way and that; now the light of electric bulbs sparkling here… and people, people. And talking, noise, buzz… buzz… and garbage up to the ceiling. Along both sides — one heap of garbage piled beside another — and people, on it, under it, lower down, sitting, lying, talking… a bend in the corridor and another bend… and so we walk on, bend after bend.
Until finally Rysiek points: “There!”
I look — she’s sitting there.
Sitting there. Granny Frania.