I looked at my watch. The glass was smashed and the dial twisted and the hands torn away and when I took it off there was its shape imprinted on my wrist, a purple weal. The clock over the main hall barriers showed 14:20 and it was no longer a question of hurrying but of cutting down the whole schedule and running it closer and hoping not to wreck it.
The two M.O. patrols weren't moving. They stood facing towards me, dark figures against the screen of drifting snow at the station's mouth. They were fifty feet away and there was no one between us along this stretch of platform. The snow looked easeful, whirling on the wind, and I felt a longing to walk in it and be lost in it. This place was a trap.
They'd want a report at the Bureau, was it necessary, what were the possible alternatives, was the person armed, so forth, and the sweat came on me again because they wanted too bloody much, they wanted you to go in and do the job and come out with your tie straight and your hair brushed and your hands clean, it was rather embarrassing for them, this kind of thing, and you had to be careful not to shout at them, yes I had to do it because I was losing consciousness and it was the last chance I'd get and it was his bad luck that the point he'd exposed was that one, not my fault, can happen to the best of us, what do you think things are like when a couple of ferrets go at it tooth and claw in a tunnel under the ground? Quite put them off their tea.
I was walking faster because of the anger and the distance had closed to thirty feet and when I'd gone another five I began calling out to them in Russian, pointing behind me — 'Who's meant to be manning the barriers down there, is it you?'
They didn't bloody well understand so I said it again in Polish, keeping the vowels flat and rounding the r's, and one of them came towards me with his paces circumspect.
'The two barriers this side of the hall — you think you can survey them at this distance without a pair of binoculars?'
He stood with his bright eyes hating me but all he could legitimately do was ask for identification, showing that just for a moment he had the upper hand by virtue of his uniform. I would even expect it of him: it was said that Dabrowski himself couldn't enter his own official residence without showing his papers.
'I must ask to see your credentials.'
Piotr Rashidov. The red seal was sufficient — and I didn't give him time to study the photograph.
'Answer my question.'
'Our orders are to guard this end of the platform.'
'And leave the barriers uncontrolled? Who is your officer?'
'There is a patrol on the other side of the barriers.'
'We shall see.'
I turned my back to him and began walking again the way I had come, looking to my left and to my right, watching for signs of inefficiency among the uniformed patrols at the flank exits.
My shoulders were stiffening and the glare of the lamps went through my eyes and ached inside my head. Walking in this direction, back into the trap and away from the healing and liberating snow, was retrogressive and irked me and to an increasing extent worried me because he'd be expected back at his post or back in the area he was controlling, say in five minutes, ten at the most.
Two station officials on the far side of the barriers, an M.O. patrol and a man in plain clothes: I stared at them and turned away and stood with my back to them, looking to the left and to the right, swinging again on my heel and pacing to the north end of the platform.
'And what patrols are there beyond this point?'
'You would have to ask my Captain?'
'There should be patrols out there. Or is it that you're afraid of the cold?'
The Muscovite elite is not afraid of the cold and I moved past them and down the slope to the drifts that in the last hour had covered the tarred pebbles. The rails made dark skeins through the snow. I came back.
'You have another hour here. Don't relax your vigilance. Pay particular attention when a train comes in.'
I paced away from them, slowly now, turning my head to demonstrate that the demands of efficient observation are unremitting: one must never be still, one must look here, look there, one's eyes must be everywhere. I stopped halfway to the barriers and stood sideways on, my head still turning, my gaze sweeping along the flank areas.
Thirst was increasing because the combat had dehydrated the system and there hadn't been time for more than a few gulps in the washroom. Blood from burst capillaries was filling the lacerated tissue along the forearms and the muscles were still half numbed. I didn't know if there was facial bruising because I hadn't looked at the mirror but I would need to check on that.
Movement left.
I looked along the platform and saw someone on this side of the barriers, a man in plain clothes, one of the Policia Ubespieczenia patrols I'd stared at just now when I'd gone down there. He stood facing towards me. He would want to know who I was or he believed I was Rashidov in the brown leather coat but wanted to know what I was doing here when recently I'd been in a different area, so I signalled him, a brief movement of my hand, yes I am Rashidov, and turned away without seeing if he acknowledged.
The pulse, quickening, made the throbbing worse in my head. Instant availability of adrenalin but I had no use for it, I couldn't run. In ten seconds I turned my back to him, finding something under. the sole of my shoe and fretting at it, chewing gum, rubbing my shoe across the edge of the platform to scrape it away, walking back towards the north end of the platform, deep breaths, deep regular breathing, prana the answer to most ills, the answer to panic.
The two M.O. patrols were watching me. They had been standing, the whole time, with their backs to the snow. They would have seen the man down there by the barriers. When I was within a dozen feet of them I turned again and saw he was still there, standing quite still, facing in this direction.
I signalled again, more emphatically, jabbing a finger towards one of the flank exits. He turned his head but could see nothing of interest, and looked back at me, not making any sign. I shrugged, he didn't understand, he was a fool.
They declined to look at me when I turned and walked slowly past them. They looked pointedly away from me, in detestation.
The. slope was gentle under my feet and I walked as far as the end, where the drifts had begun covering the tarred pebbles. The snow whirled from the open sky mesmerically, some of the flakes touching my face as I lifted it.
I would hear them if they moved and they hadn't moved.
Then I walked on through the deeper drifts, slowly at first and then making my way more quickly over the rough terrain when I knew that the screen had thickened behind me and I was obliterated. It was malowniczy, the snow in Warsaw, very picturesque, did I not find it so?
18: CRACOW
It smelt of mothballs.
From where I stood I could see the door and I didn't look away from it.
'When?'
'In an hour.'
'All right.'
'Do it by phone. I don't want you to go out.'
She said it might be dangerous to use the phone.
'Less dangerous than going into the streets.'
I felt surprised that it worried me so much but I suppose it was because the whole thing was entering its final stages and it'd be a shame if they caught her as late as this. Once they'd thrown her into a train she'd be lost for years among the camps but if she stayed in the city until after Sroda she'd have a chance: a general amnesty was certain because of the talks, as witness to the bountiful mercy of the Mother State.
It was black astrakhan, a hat to match and a cheap wristwatch, seventy zlotys plus the brown leather one plus the hat, the last of Piotr Rashidov hanging flat on a hook in the corner with the macs and duffle-jackets near the door where cooking smells came. Because when they found him they'd know who it was who'd walked out into the snow.