‘Make a booking for room forty-three.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘I will arrive at eight p.m.’
‘Your name?’
‘You will come alone. Sebastian Voight stays behind.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I have no name. I just have what you’re looking for.’
The line cut dead. A sort of echo rang in Anselm’s mind, carrying that alarming confession: ‘I have no name’. He listened for a long time, discerning more fear than authority, inexperience rather than the familiar exercise of low trade. Who was she? Frenzel had almost certainly been there in the background, feet up, picking his teeth, unrelenting.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
IPN/RM/13129/2010
EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF A STATEMENT MADE BY ROZA MOJESKA
2h. 04
The Shoemaker had not lost his eloquence. He spoke like one released from a long and imposed confinement. An outpouring of fresh ideas filled the pages of Freedom and Independence, born from having watched events in silence and from having reflected deeply upon them. He wrote simply speaking directly to the crisis of the times. It was his gift… to choose words and order them in such a way as to light a fire in winter. He wrote about the past as if it was ours and the future as if it had already arrived. It was the rhymes and rhythms of independence; a meter first heard during the Nazi Occupation. The Shoemaker was back. And I felt proud; he’d only spoken because I asked him to. I’d set him free to speak again.
2h. 33
His words travelled further than I imagined. An English journalist from the BBC sent a message from a cafe along the distribution chain. It reached Barbara, who told me. John Fielding he was called. He wanted to meet the Shoemaker. Mateusz delivered my reply: he was to wear his overcoat like a cloak and wait at the grave of Prus. I tailed him from the entrance of the cemetery… but he didn’t go straight to where he’d been directed. He went first to another grave, lingered there a while, and then made his way to the meeting point. I lingered, too, and then joined him.
2h. 39
He was writing a number of articles on the underground media entitled ‘Lives Lived in Secret for the Truth’ and wanted a representative for print, radio and film. To that end he hoped to interview the Shoemaker. He had to make do with me, and I spelled out his ideas. The piece, derived from several interviews, appeared under a pseudonym in the Observer but then got reported on all over the place… Le Figaro, The Washington Post, Die Welt. Voice of America even did a broadcast on his thinking, sending his words right back to Warsaw.
While dealing with my life lived in secret, we naturally dealt with his. In time he told me about his mother’s death when he was a child, of his father’s swift remarriage. How his family had never even mentioned her name. I refer to it now because this was his reason for coming to Warsaw Like all of the Friends, he had a personal story that was tied up with the greater struggle.
2h. 41
The ‘Lives Lived in Secret’ series brought him into contact with a journalist involved in visual media. An article on how film-makers steered between the truth and the censor duly appeared in the Observer, exciting a similarly international reaction.
2h. 56
John couldn’t speak of her without blushing and he’d clam up if I asked any questions. A comical ritual soon fell into place: he would ask about the Shoemaker, and I would ask about the film-maker. He shoved me.’ I shoved him.
3h. 34
Throughout 1982, those who’d been interned were being gradually released. And as they came home, I began to wonder if Freedom and Independence had done its job. The debate about the future had been taken up in numerous other publications and, as Mr Lasky used to say, once you’ve been heard there’s no point in repeating yourself. The Shoemaker’s contribution had been made. Every time I saw John he’d ask to meet him and I’d say no. But I increasingly asked myself, ‘Why not?’ Didn’t our ‘Yes’ involve a move from secrecy to openness? Pavel had said ‘Yes’ too soon, that’s all. And that act of trust was part of the meaning of his death… it rang out as a summons, not a warning.
3h. 41
Mateusz didn’t tell me where we were going. He just picked me up and drove me to the Lazienki Park. After all the usual checks he brought me to a bench. Five minutes later a man pushing a pram sat beside me. I looked at the baby and turned to the father… he was grey and thin and tired, his cheeks hollowed. It was Bernard. They’d let him out. The boy in the pram was Tomasz.’ born the day I’d gone back to Father Nicodem.
3h. 51
Bernard wanted to meet the Shoemaker. He’d read back copies obtained by his father and he wanted to get involved. He, too, had ideas that he wanted to share; and he knew others whose thinking on the crisis deserved a wider audience than a crowded basement. The war on ideas could never have been more important, he said, because we were winning.
Was I angry with Mateusz for setting up a meeting without my initiative? I don’t know, I just looked at the child’s fingers gripping the edge of his blanket.’ the clipped nails. Something inside me snapped.
4h. 05
Father Nicodem opened the door and swore. Come to think of it.’ he swore each time I’d met him. It was a sort of surprised greeting.
I told him Freedom and Independence should finish with the next edition, and that the ensuing silence would serve to amplify and preserve everything that had been said beforehand. Oddly enough (he said) the Shoemaker had come to the same conclusion. Our minds had been running along similar lines. I was relieved. A moment of shared calm opened between myself and Father Nicodem. We’d travelled a very long journey, without the chance to talk along the way I was the first to speak. I said that before going home I wanted to meet the Shoemaker. That I had an idea for the future.
You’d have thought a train had come through the garden wall. Father Nicodem was on his feet, jabbering, ‘No, no, no, no, no.
The conversation, far from calm, went something like this:
‘Our time is over,’ I said. ‘Something new has to take our place.’
‘Like what?’
‘A new publication run by new people running things in a different way.’
‘Different?’
‘Yes, relying on trust rather than fear.’
‘Trust?’
You’d have thought it was a dirty word. He was standing over me, looking down as if I was insane. But he was old school, trusting to an absolute minimum. As a system, it had worked well enough, but we had to move forward, now, and leave all that behind.
‘I’ve learned that whoever trusts the most is the most free,’ I said. ‘We have to live as normally as possible: that’s how we fight them. We live ordinary lives, giving fear the smallest room in the house.’
‘That’s how you get caught,’ he shouted. ‘Fear is your friend, Roza. Give it the double bed and sleep on the floor.’
‘Not any longer.’
I told him that there was a new generation of activists ready to speak — friends whose strength came from open, shared risk. All they required was an outlet for their ideas. They were married. They had children. They didn’t want to fight as if they were on their own. And they were all children of the Shoemaker. They wanted to meet him.
‘He is a hugely symbolic figure,’ I said.
‘A hidden one.’
‘I know, but before falling silent.’ he has one last task… to hand on the responsibility for tomorrow To tell them that his day is over.’ and theirs begins… with a new publication, under a new name.
In effect it would be the child of Freedom and Independence — using the Shoemaker’s press and distribution system. The transition from one voice to the next would be without a pause for breath.
Father Nicodem appeared to waver between more shouting and giving up. I then said something I regret, because it was heavy with implication. I didn’t mention Pavel, I just said, ‘If anyone has the right to meet the Shoemaker, it’s me. And I’ve earned a say in the future of his Friends.’