It began badly. Not that it was the first time. (Because there had already been many bad beginnings.) But the feel of it. Of encirclement. This time increasing until it was unbearable. Of course, habituation, self-control, costing a greater effort every time.
“Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord be with Thee…”
“Hail, Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death, amen.”
I remember the glaring identity of “now” and “in the hour of our death,” how many times did I feel it during the prayers, but people prayed constantly, you heard it, here, nearby, here a second time, while taking a walk, from people nearby, or somewhat distant, as you walked farther ahead, and as you just wandered about, whenever something exploded a little more loudly than usual, it was like a wave:
“Hail, Mary, full of grace…”
“Now and in the hour of our death, amen.”
And the praying. That wasn’t so much. The singing. Now that was something.
To Thy protection
We flee…
It drifted out from the cellar:
Oh Virgin…
To the second cellar:
Our protectress,
Our intermediary,
Our comforter…
It passes on:
Oh Virgin…
— but now others already — these have only just begun.
Past the bend they are already up to
Unite us with Thy Son…
Suddenly it’s louder, bombs, and:
Sacred Heart of Jesus,
have mercy on us,
Sacred Heart of Jesus,
have mercy on us,
Sacred Heart of Jesus,
have mercy on us.
Near the altar people are kneeling:
For all those who are dying this night, and for all the dead: Our Father… in heaven… Thy… Thy… Thy… of this earth…
Pounding, the walls are buckling.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us…
That reality — wretched — it’s smoky — you have to keep your eyes hidden inside your collar — or cover them with your hand — dust, rubble, it’s gray, red, dry, and burning in your nose, in your teeth, and on your tongue, breathing it in, the heat, everything stings, sweating…
Oohh Virgin, oohh Virgin…
And suddenly (Most Sacred Heart of Jesus) the counting — One, two, three, four, five (here it comes)
Ooh Viirr-gin
Oh oh — One two three four five six seven… (here it comes)
Have mercy on us
Something’s crashing down—
Our comforter
— One two three four five six seven… eight nine ten…
Anxiety had set in, so something soothing was necessary. Singing. Beseeching. Standing. Now without fretting. Tiny rosary-bead pasta. Dumplings. Eating under an archway. Because you take food along. Why not? It can’t be helped. If stuff’s sifting down, so what. And if plaster covers the bowl over there, too bad, you take it with you and eat because you want to. It also falls into the food. What can you do? It’s crunchy. It’s dry. You eat. Too bad. But if it’s large. Then take it out with a spoon. And eat.
On the other hand, anxiety set in on the theme of where to stay. Everywhere. Among everyone. We, too. We started feeling a need to change places. For a while it was moderate. Then it grew. The first change was just the tunnel. But in the tunnel — as I have already described — there was a dreadful slamming of doors from people running through, from the “wardrobes,” and that caused drafts, blowing, it was cold. And also because after the initial spaciousness there was a crush once more, because other dabblers like us turned up with bedding, and it was narrow there, besides which it was a passageway, because I can recall that the tunnel connected two blocks. And that it passed under the courtyard. We imagined that a bomb might break through the layer of earth and the concrete ceiling (who knows, perhaps it was very thin). So we quickly returned to our big red shelter, the one with the chapel.
I think I’ve already said that in addition to blocks A and B there were also two smaller blocks. It’s time to make this clear. C and D. They stood sideways — on Kościelna, from Rybaki to Wybrzeże Gdańskie. There was a kind of triangular little courtyard between them. Aside from this, between block B (ours) and those two (C and D) there was no free space. They’d grown close to each other. So that we didn’t distinguish between the cellars, either. There was a maze of passages, cellars, rooms, large cellars or shelters, and in one place a concrete stairway leading down into the cellar of cellars. The boiler room. Little doors. A subbasement room, iron, iron measuring rods, cauldrons, pipes. And yet another lower level, a hole, and there was also the boiler sump; and somewhere nearby was a manhole leading into the city sewer. Which was carefully inspected by us, considered, measured to determine its possibilities, deliberated over, surrounded by us, by people, especially the men, because we were the most afraid, the young men in particular. Because the first — whom they destroyed — were the young.
Well, somewhere in the vicinity of this tangle was a concrete branch, entirely concrete, gray, hard, dry, rough, and there was chaos, frenzy, and bedding in it as in a laundry. The branch had a door into the tunnel. The one I have mentioned. The tunnel went on its way — long, gut-like, gray, with electric lamps. Up to the doors into block A. Near which Aunt Trocińska had parked herself with her bedding against the wall. And then we. And others.
We went back to our large shelter and immediately started thinking which other shelter to move to. Should we? And when? What were the so-called objective motives, independent of knowing the so-called “law of whirling about” and based on looking at oneself from a distance and knowing the relative value of changing places? Was it for safety? Or just in case? That this cellar juts out a tiny bit and has too few pillars? What? Yes. Something of that sort. Because that next shelter really was deeper or it had more pillars, I don’t know which, but it was concrete, completely gray, dark gray, heavily vaulted, and smaller, yes, however, the ceilings were lower, and that was an important consideration. It was under block C or D. Closer to Kościelna Street. But that old, large, higher one had Wybrzeże behind its wall. It’s true. Praga. The Vistula. The gunboats. The Orthodox church with the blue cupolas (gilded now, but tarnished). Those trees from the zoo with the Hitlerites in the branches with their binoculars. Pseudo-Gothic (Saint) Florian was still standing then. The tall modern angular tops of the Greek-style Polish State Railway building with the porticos from Targowa Street (till now). So that was considered. And rightly so. “There’s a tank behind the wall… sshhh…” Jokes and more jokes. But Wybrzeże was theirs. It had bunkers. Against us. (We had barricades against them.) The Vistula. And searchlights. On the left. On the right. And over the asphalt, on the water, in the sky, and again over the asphalt, on the water, in the sky — one, two, three, and a circle, one, two, three, the ones from the left, one, two, three — the ones from the right from Kierbedź, and again those on the left from the railroad bridge, around and around. (It is true that the entire panorama was framed by two bridges. Two iron gratings across the Vistula. They were still standing. Oh! They served them, all right. The right one, the Kierbedź bridge, the one that began near the Russian church, and the left one, the railroad bridge, the peripheral line, which began near the left end of the zoo, practically scraped against Golędzinów— beyond Golędzinów to Żerań—to the Citadel over here… The railroad tracks ran across its roadway. Two roadways, actually. It was a double bridge. On separate piers. Other trains rolled past under the clickety-clack grates, on thump-thump ties that jumped and threw up dust because they were wood, boxcars…) But that’s nothing. For some time we were still in the red shelter, the original one, the proto-shelter, in the proto-stalls, with a view of the sputtering candles on the altar — then the tunnel, the wind and drafts, calculations, return to the proto-stalls, but this time nearer to the center or the altar — and which number (this I no longer remember) relocation. Into the second shelter. Gray. With pillars. It’s darker, quieter; there are fewer people, in fact only a few — for the time being. Bunks? It seems they were there from the first — yes — was there some system that it was all prepared like that? Something of the sort — it seems. So, right away… August 17… Saint Jacek’s and Miron’s Day. Freta Street. A “wardrobe.” Oops! Into the dumplings. Mama was making dumplings.