Chapter Twenty-Nine

IPN/RM/13129/2010

EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF A STATEMENT MADE BY ROZA MOJESKA

4h. 16

I only told Mateusz, Bernard and John about the meeting with the Shoemaker. They were a group representing more than themselves: the Worker, the Intellectual, and the Messenger.

4h. 22

I chose the 1st November because it’s All Souls Day A day of memorial, a day for Pavel and that other man. I knew there’d be thousands of lit candles. I knew there’d be lots of people. I knew it would be easy to blend into a crowd if Father Nicodem had been right and I had been wrong. Of course.’ I was about to break Pavel’s Golden Rule, to never meet a stranger. I was about to meet the Shoemaker.

4h. 37

I don’t know who saw who first. I hadn’t seen Brack in thirty years. He’d been twenty-odd and he was now in his fifties. But our eyes met over the hats and headscarves. Nothing essential had changed. He’d always looked hungry; he’d always scraped his lower lip with his teeth. I was about to slip away when I saw Father Nicodem.

4h. 39

He was standing ten yards or so from Brack, hands in his coat pockets, as if there was nothing to be frightened of… and then my mind blurred. I realised that I wasn’t the only one who’d been betrayed. The Shoemaker was somewhere nearby; and he was only there because of me. I had to cause a diversion so that he could get away. So I walked over to Brack and said.’

‘Well done, Comrade.’

4h. 42

And then all hell let loose. John appeared with his camera, just as two ubeks grabbed my arms. More of them pushed through the crowd and seized him. I was marched straight past Father Nicodem. He looked on carelessly. I’ve thought often since: in the circumstances, there was nothing else he could do. He was simply being professional.

4h. 50

I was brought to the same interrogation room that they’d used in the fifties. The colours had changed, that’s all… from a sickly green to a sickly yellow The desk looked the same and Brack was behind it. The lamp had gone. They gave me a chair rather than a footstool. The door closed and we were alone.

‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in my asking about the Shoemaker?’ he asked.

‘None,’ I replied.

He leaned back and opened the desk drawer. Looking inside, angling his head, he muttered.’

‘If you’d only answered that question all those years ago, then everything would have been so different. For both of us.’

He seemed to be blaming me for what he had done.

With his head still bent, he said.’

‘I wanted you, this time… as much as the Shoemaker. There’s something I think you ought to know’

He slid the drawer back and forth.

‘Do you remember you once said there’ll be laws one day to get at people like me?’ He glanced up, just to make sure I’d heard him.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That day will come.

‘I think it will, too,’ he said, ‘given how the Party has messed up everything. But that doesn’t change a thing for you.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘You called it justice,’ he said, dropping his gaze into the drawer again. ‘You need to understand that you won’t be getting any’

I stared at him, waiting.

‘Justice,’ he said, quietly, drawing out the word. ‘You won’t be getting any’

I stood up, feeling so much bigger than him, his system, his prison, and I said so, but he shut me up with a small gesture… a closing of the thumb and third finger, like when you extinguish a candle. I sat down, suddenly obedient.

‘Have you any idea who betrayed you?’ he asked, smiling.

‘No,’ I replied.

He took a passport out of his coat pocket and slid it across the table.

‘I’ve always given you a choice, Roza,’ he said. ‘I’ve always been fair. I’ve always let you pick the consequences of your actions. So, here’s another choice: if you ever want to bring me to court, then bear this in mind — I don’t want to speak on my own behalf. I’ll rely on my informer, and they can tell the judge what I did to defend my country from agitators and parasites. How, together, we fought and lost. I’ll stand up and be counted, Roza, but not on my own.

And then he told me the name and what they’d been doing for years on end. That was all he had to do. He knew I’d never want to see their story spread all over the papers. That’s when I noticed he’d dressed for the occasion; he’d shaved, combed his hair… for this moment with me in Mokotow Without waiting for a reply, he slowly shut the drawer and walked out of the room, not even bothering to close to the door.

I went home, leaving the passport on the desk. That was his one act of mercy — a chance to get away from where my life had fallen apart. To start another in the West. This was his moment of complete triumph. He knew I wouldn’t take it, because we both knew he’d locked me in Mokotow for ever. He’d even left me with the key. I hold it still, in my hand.

END OF TRANSCRIPTION (4h. 56)

Загрузка...