Chasing the King of Hearts. Hanna Krall
situation is getting unpleasant. People are going to work, they might hear, might get curious . . . Because who shouts “I’m a virgin” at dawn? And who can a policeman shove around inside an entrance like that and get away with it? They could be in for a lot of trouble. Fortunately the policeman is put off by the fact that the girl is a virgin. So he turns to Izolda, and she already knows what to do. She doesn’t wail and doesn’t struggle. The acquaintance looks discreetly away. The policeman buttons his pants and the two women go home.
Basia and Jurek Gajer are leaving Poland.
The Germans announce that any Jews who are citizens of other countries will be allowed to leave and people buy foreign passports on the black market. Basia and Jurek purchase ones from Honduras and report to the Hotel Polski on Długa Street.
Izolda wants to say goodbye to Basia.
Because it was at her place that she saw a blond man with helpless hands.
Because it was in her apartment that he said: You look like a rabbi’s daughter. To which she said: My father is a chemist who’s searching for a color that isn’t in the rainbow. That’s almost the same thing, he said, smiling, and that’s how love began.
Izolda wants to catch up before they leave and stays the night with the Gajers. They talk about Honduras, about how they’ll have to learn Spanish. That Spanish isn’t all that hard. That Basia’s colorful sweater will come in handy on the journey. (Basia explains the stitch—which loop goes where—and shows how she tied off all the bits of wool on the inside and covered the knots with a dark pink lining.)
The Germans surround the Hotel Polski at five in the morning. They send everyone to Pawiak prison and separate the Jews from the Poles. Izolda shows her identity card made out to Maria Pawlicka and stays with the Poles who came to say goodbye. Basia and Jurek show their Honduran passports and stay with the Jews. The Germans take the Jews away, the Poles stay in prison. She spends two months in Pawiak.
There are cells on both sides of the corridor. One is for Jewish women. Every day, on her way to the toilet, Izolda steals a glance at them through the spyhole. One morning she notices her husband’s mother. She’s sitting sideways, resting her chin on her withered, wrinkled hand. That evening she’s facing the door, as though she were looking straight at her daughter-in-law.
Izolda shrinks back in a panic.
She returns to her cell.
She asks a new arrival who else the Germans had arrested the day before.
Several people.
Was there a tall young man with straight blond hair?
Yes, there was a man with blond hair.
And how about a dark-haired man with a beard . . . No, what am I saying, without a beard, quite a bit older . . .
Yes, there was a man with dark hair.
And a girl? With bleached yellow hair?
No, no girl.
It’s all clear: they caught her husband and his parents, but his sister managed to escape. Izolda struggles not to shout: Listen, everyone, they took my husband! I don’t have anyone to live for! But what sense would that make, the women in the cell can’t help her, the guards even took away their hairpins. She looks at the others with envy. They wound up here at Pawiak for an important cause, for some act of patriotism. They taught children Polish history or carried secret messages or printed underground leaflets . . . Is it her fault that her only cause is her husband?
For exercise the women are let out into the prison yard.
They totter about, one behind the other, under the eye of the female guard. After a moment five figures appear on the steps—the women from the Jewish cell. Izolda knows—everyone knows—that the Jewish cell is headed into the ruins of the ghetto. Where they will be shot.
Izolda sees her husband’s mother.
The Polish women walk four abreast and turn to the left just as the Jewish women pass by, so the two groups are facing each other.
She is frightened.
His mother will recognize her.
His mother will give her away with a look, a gesture . . . Will she smile? Will she say something?
Izolda starts to pray. The way she always does, to the Mother of God on Lilusia’s medallion. May she not look in my direction . . . Let her walk past me . . . She breaks out in a sweat, she’s wet with fear, she tries speeding up her pace and slowing down . . . The Jewish cell keeps moving across the yard, her own mother-in-law is walking to her death and Izolda is asking the Mother of God to make her step more quickly.
The Jewish women march out of the yard.
The Polish women walk in a circle, in silence, one behind the other.
Shots ring out.
She counts to five.
She thinks: Now it’s my husband’s turn, now Shayek will be taken out and shot.
The women return to their cell.
The next day someone hands her a smuggled message, from her husband.
The Germans had hauled in a different tall young man with blond hair.
The Germans free the women detained at the Hotel Polski.
She goes back home.
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