So Róża and Basia fell behind. And the rest — always more and more stretched out it seems — walked on — already past the gate with the monstrance, past the monastery gardens, always higher, at a slant. On grass. On dirt. A piece of something. At times a tree. That’s good. More or less. As cover. Because we were going to Nowe Miasto. And the situation was getting worse and worse. The more we went toward the right. And the higher we went. Other people were walking, too. Lots of them. Anyway, people were walking down the hill, too. They passed us. That fat woman was also with us. From Towarowa. The one who slept on the door from the toilet. She had something tied to her back. Below her neck. I think. Because she was walking bent over from carrying something.
There began to be explosions from Żerań, too. From them. From beyond the Vistula. The front. And the sound of explosions was increasing. Those were German. Bullets, too. Around us. Thicker and thicker. Aimed right at us, I think (they had to be). It was getting hot. The sun was already out. It was striking our eyes. Somehow Pani Rymińska fell into step. I don’t know how long we walked. Uphill. At a slant. We began crawling up to the Sisters of the Holy Sacrament. That is, up to Benon-Bieńkowski. Which was also in ruins but somehow still standing. But we were just beneath it. Already above Rybaki, above apartment house number 23 in the ruins there below. But Benon was still higher up. We climbed up onto the worst terrain. The hardest for walking. Steep. And the most shot at. We grabbed at branches, I think, at the grass, in order to move one step higher. And higher. At anything at all. Because the bullets were going whiz! whiz! At those branches. At the grass. Somehow not at us. But it wasn’t that certain. The branches and the grass were gray. And they spurted. Over and over. With bullets. Shells, too. And there was that front. Boom after boom.
During this crawling up over the grass something around my neck loosens, slips from my back and… the blanket with the rusks flies away, falls off… lower… the rusks scatter, every which way. Instantly I begin grabbing at the closest ones. Back into the blanket. With desperation. One handful. Another. A third. But the rest— they’re lower down, or in the grass, or simply scattered about. My people are already pressing against me, practically pushing me for several seconds already, not letting me be.
“Leave them, leave them!”
“You see what’s going on!”
“Miron, Mirek, Miron!”
I do nothing. After all, there’s hunger. Each fistful of rusks is a day of life.
“Miron! Leave them!”
“Miron!”
“Miron! Get going!”
They were all yelling. Aunt Uff. Zbyszek. Swen. Celina. Swen yelled a lot.
“Miron! Miron!”
I have those voices with me today. In my ears, as if alive. They’re waiting. They walk a little. Almost come back. They stand over me. With their bundles. Hunched over. Because there’s a constant ping, ping. And pounding. But here there’s each rusk. So many of them here in the grass. The grass is thick. I’m collecting them, quick as lightning. But…
“Miron! Miron!”
Those who had been below me were already moving above me. Some other people. They draw near. Approach. Grab. Wave. Hunch over. And still the shells keep coming, coming. Not as much anymore. Just enough. Another. Another. It’s hard to snatch things up from grass. I’m ripping the rusks out.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I shout, “I’m coming, I’m coming!”
“Mirek! Mirek!” I remember Swen’s mother calling the longest. Her scream. And her continual leaning forward. With a blanket just like mine. Filled with rusks.
“Coming, coming.” Because I’m done.
“Done!” And I tie the bundle, throw it onto my back, and run.
Quickly. Quickly. Because it’s bad. We reach the ruins of the factory-church. Benon-Bieńkowski. Boards. Thudding. Tap-taptap. The remains of the main hall. I think there were others. The façade of Benon. From above. Boards. A pile of ruins. Pieces of debris. Whitewash. Plaster. Wooden laths. Splinters. Bricks. Eaves. Everything. Whatever there was. Already we’re on the escarpment. No longer on that frying-pan slope. Perhaps we’ll make it. But whatever’s behind Benon is behind Benon. In any case we make it to those picket fences that are still standing today. The gate. Through the gate. Into the lane. The tiny lane from Benon to the Nowe Miasto Rynek. And already, on the right, Przyrynek, Our Lady — brick, old. On the left, the Sisters of the Holy Sacrament. Full of people. With bundles. Humps. With something under their arms. A basket. Anything at all. Or nothing. Here I remember Pan Ad., with those rolled-up trouser legs, I think, hopping and skipping somewhere over the ruins, over waste and rubbish from the buildings. And that’s how I lose him in memory. The Rynek forms a triangle. We are at its base. Somehow we think it over. Heat. Glare. Smoke. Explosions. The front. People.
At the neck of the funnel into the Rynek dense crowds of people, of rubble, are massed together; the rubble already jumbled together, hanging, protruding, flying about — because there’s always something else flying past, flying down (after all everything is still changing!) — Freta, Koźla, the Franciscans. Apartment houses split open. Added-on floors. Several stories high. Split vertically. Crosswise. Empty. Into chips. Dangling strips. Of plaster, laths, boards, bricks. There was an awful lot of it. All Warsaw was made of that stuff. Almost. Six-story buildings, too: laths, plaster, bricks, boards. Or, rather, splinters. Crumbly material. It was dry. It crackled. When struck, it spurted out. House after house. Sheet-metal corbels — parapets — were hanging from the empty spaces left by balconies or from nothing at all. They swung. Clanked. Banged. Thin, hollow inside— what one had thought was a parapet — just a wall-hollow wall. In general — Warsaw was betraying all her secrets. She’d already betrayed them — there was nothing to hide. Already revealed the truth. Let it out. She’d revealed a hundred years. Two hundred. Three hundred. And more. Everything was exposed. From top to bottom. From the Mazovian princes. Up to us. And back again. Staś, Sobieski, the Saxons, the Vasas. The Vasas. The Saxons, Sobieski, Staś, Fukier. The Sobieskis, Marysieńka, the Sisters of the Holy Sacrament.[14]
We turned. We. All of us. The woman with the door marks and various others who walked by, walked up, walked away. The front was in full play. Like the earth. Into complete ruins and sky. Blue. Smoke-filled. Red. Shredded. Gritty. Dusty. Sun. Dust in our teeth. And lime. In our nose — gray, smoke, black. The ruins stink. Mightily. The burned-out buildings — awful! And how a blast with its drifting dust stinks. Through your ears to your nose. The nose shares a cold with the eyes. Mechanical weeping. A screen. Literally. What else? The hands work. Somewhat like blind people’s. The feet dig into something. The back works efficiently. The whole together, sweaty, exhausted, something spoken in the background. Thoughts, too. The same thing, only faster. An entrance. With people. Under something. They’re looking. Through a hole. A chink. Stairs. Into something dark, damp, crowded. And I don’t know why, but that trapdoor, was it a trapdoor? — an entrance (stairs leading down) beneath the Sisters of the Holy Sacrament? Or something made of boards? And deep down underneath it those hordes. That nest. Swen stamps his foot, shouts, digs in his heels.