The Miernik Dossier

12. REPORT BY CHRISTOPHER.

The disintegration of Tadeusz Miernik went public Sunday night at a party in his apartment. Miernik invited a small group of people up for drinks. Usually these affairs of Miernik’s are anything but wild; the party on Sunday was an exception. Miernik himself made it so.

I arrived a little late and found Collins, Brochard, Khan, and three girls already on hand. Of the females, the most noteworthy was Ilona Bentley, Collins’ companion. She is half English, half Hungarian. She has black hair to her shoulder blades and a face that will be ruined before she is thirty. It is not yet ruined. A light burns under her skirt.

It was apparent early in the evening that Miernik had noticed all this. Ilona sat on the floor at Collins’ feet. Miernik sat opposite, saying nothing, his eyes fixed on the girl. He wore a suit, a vest, a tie, polished shoes. Everyone else, just back from the mountains on a Sunday evening, wore sweaters and corduroys.

For his guests Miernik had provided Polish vodka, and nothing else. The vodka, several bottles of it, was chilled in ice buckets. Miernik kept one bucket beside his chair, and he filled the glasses out of the dripping bottle as soon as they were emptied. He insisted that the stuff be drunk Slav style: no sipping, right down the hatch with a cry of good luck.

This sort of drinking did not bring good cheer to our company. Among them, in addition to the melancholy Miernik, we had a concentration camp survivor (Ilona); a man who saw his three young brothers murdered by a Hindu who decapitated the little corpses and hung the heads around his neck on a string (Khan); a victim of mass rape by Russian troops (Brochard’s girl, an Austrian named Inge); and a veteran of the Maquis (Brochard).

Brochard was attempting to lighten the mood by singing bawdy songs. This failed because no one else knew all the French words, and because Collins wanted to hear about Brochard’s experiences as a boy guerrilla.

Brochard’s Maquis group operated, during the war, in the country around Geneva. He comes from a small town in the Jura. He joined the Maquis as a runner when he was only twelve. Apparently the Resistance felt that the Germans were not intelligent enough to suspect children. Brochard found out different when he was thirteen. He was arrested by a German patrol, which seized him as he bicycled from one village to another at two o’clock in the morning. The Germans took him to their headquarters, where he was questioned by a Wehrmacht officer. Brochard managed to get rid of a kitchen knife that he was carrying (against orders) in the waistband of his trousers. He pushed the knife downwards and shook it out the leg of his pants. He cut himself on the thigh in the process.

The German officer stood him in front of his desk and questioned him in a harsh voice. “I think that he must have been a schoolmaster in civilian life,” Brochard said, “because he had the technique perfect. I, of course, was filled with heroism: the Boche would not get any secrets out of me. The only secret I knew, really, was the one I was carrying in my mind. I had been told to tell a certain man in Gex that Marcel wished to sell his cows. The Resistance used these ridiculous formulas for their messages. They were always sending news about cows to people who had no conceivable interest in cows. The Germans could not guess the meaning of the code phrase, of course. But they could shoot anyone who spoke such phrases. The messenger was dead, but the secret was safe. The joke was, the message usually meant no more to the recipient than to the Germans. Our clever agents were always forgetting the code, so they would have to call up the sender on the telephone and ask what he meant by ‘Marcel wants to sell his cows.’ At thirteen, I hadn’t figured this out.

“The German officer wanted an explanation of my riding around on a bicycle at two o’clock in the morning. I knew that I must tell him something. I searched for a cover story. I couldn’t think of anything. My leg was bleeding, I could feel the blood filling my shoe. I thought I might faint. I stood there daydreaming about a daring rescue: I pictured my gallant comrades of the Maquis bursting through the windows with machine pistols blazing. I saw myself picking up the weapon of a fallen rescuer and riddling the German.

“The German said, ‘I am going to call your parents in here to find out why they permit a child to roam about on a bicycle in the middle of the night.’ He was outraged that I wasn’t asleep as I should be. He thought I was a bad boy. It was humiliating that he should think only that, when I was a hero of the Resistance. I thought of a story that I believed would keep my parents out of it.

“‘Herr Hauptmann,’ I said, ‘I’ll tell you what I was doing if you agree not to tell my mother and father. I was making love to a girl in the woods.’

“‘Making love to a girl!’ bellowed the German, and stood up so suddenly that his chair went squealing over the floor. He was outraged. He strode around the desk. I think that he was going to strike me. Then he saw, on the floor at my feet, a puddle of blood from the cut that the knife had made.

‘“What the hell is that?’he cried. ‘Take off your pants.’

“I tried to avoid this. I refused. He sent for two soldiers. They leaned their rifles against the wall and pulled off my trousers.

“It was a very German scene: ‘Take off that boy’s trousers!’- ‘Jawohl!’No questions, no hesitation, no smiles, a serious order to be obeyed.

“Blood was running down my leg. The soldiers were careful not to get it on their uniforms. The officer brought the lamp from his desk and tipped it so that the light fell on my wound. It was a small cut. ‘How did you come by that?’ he demanded. He shone the light on my genitals. ‘You have no hair!’ he cried. He grinned in triumph; I was outwitted. Obviously hairless boys cannot make love in the woods. Then he stopped and stared at my hairless parts again. His expression became grim. He told the soldiers to go out of the room.

“‘Léon,’ he said. ‘You are clipped.’

“He had seen that I was circumcised. Everything was pushed out of my mind by a sudden shame. I knew that I could not be a hero in the German’s eyes now. He knew I was a Jew. He knew that my parents were Jews. I might say that he knew more than the French people in our village knew, because my father had stopped mentioning his religion years before. France is not a Jewloving country.

“I knew we were all as good as dead. We’d be on the next train for Auschwitz. The German poured some alcohol on his handkerchief and gave it to me. ‘Wash that cut, he said. I did so. He left me standing in front of his desk for several minutes. I remained as I was, naked from the waist downwards. He stared at his hands.

“Finally the German looked at me. ‘Put on your pants, he said. He wrote me out a pass. ‘I advise you,’ the German said, ‘to keep your pants on in the presence of the German Army. Get out of here.”’

Inge, the Austrian girl, lifted misty eyes to Brochard. “Not all Germans were beasts,” she said.

Miernik gave a great snort, like a horse smelling a corpse. “That is a lot of shit,” he said in German. “Ilona, isn’t that a lot of shit?”

I had never heard Miernik use such a word, I would have been less surprised if he had pulled a gun.

“Which?” asked Ilona. “Léon’s story or Inge’s proposition?”

“Inge’s shit about the Germans.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve had no chance to observe the Germans?”

“I don’t suppose that I met the flower of Germany at Belsen.”

Ilona, herself a flower at Collins’ feet with her white skirt spread around her, reached over and touched Miernik’s heavy leg. He was quivering. The black cloth of his suit trembled.

“I’ve practically forgotten the camp; I was very young, Ilona said. It was hard to think that Ilona-she could hardly have been less beautiful, less fragile at the age of eight-had stood behind the wire in a sack dress, her hair shaved off, guard dogs sniffing her sour prisoner’s odor. She smiled apologetically, as if she really regretted that she could tell no horror stories.

Inge stared at Miernik, her face ready to break like a child’s. “I remind you that I am Austrian,” she said.

“I remind you, my dear Inge, that Austria was part of the German Reich when your lover was having his pants pulled off by German soldiers, while Ilona was in a concentration camp, while my country was being raped by the SS.”

“Really, Tad,” Brochard said. “Inge was hardly born when all that was going on.”

“I was thirteen when the war ended,” Inge said.

“Old enough,” Miernik cried. He pulled another bottle of vodka from the rattling ice and began filling glasses. Water poured off the end of the bottle, wetting everyone’s clothes. Inge pulled her glass aside, and the vodka splashed on the floor beside her.

“I was old enough to be thrown on the ground and raped by a company of Russian soldiers,” she said. “They are heroes, I suppose. Was Ilona raped by a German soldier? Did the Germans rape your mother, your sisters?”

“The Germans raped no one. That is an act of life.”

“Try it at thirteen,” Inge said. “Your act of life! I say shit right back at you.”

“Yes, an act of life. An act of spontaneous human beings. Brutal, yes. But human, Inge.”

“Wild beasts,” Inge said. There was no danger of her crying now. She was a victim, too.

“Better a beast than a machine,” Miernik said. “I will tell you the difference between the Russian Army and the German Army, since you are too young to remember.”

“Inge seems to remember, all right,” Ilona said. “Tad, we’re all a little drunk.”

Miernik remained standing, the bottle in one hand, the vodka glass in the other. He poured himself three quick drinks, throwing his head back to swallow. His hair fell over his forehead.

“The German Army was a machine,” he said. “A machine, Inge, a gray machine clanking through mankind. It smelled of steel and petrol. The Germans sat on the machines, like machines themselves. Gray, smelling of the machine shop.”

“I know what the Russians smelled like,” Inge said.

Miernik, holding Inge’s eyes, went around again with his bottle. He poured the vodka into glasses that were already full; it slopped over. He drank out of the bottle.

“The Russian Army,” he said. He fell into his chair with his legs spread and closed his eyes. “The Russian Army was like the earth. To see it coming was like seeing the earth move, a great mob of men in brown. It was an avalanche. It buried your Germans. The German Army, to me, is the burnt trucks and tanks in the Polish countryside.”

“Tell me how beautifully the Russians sang,” Inge said. “You people always tell that.”

“The fighting went right by our house,” Miernik said. “I went out when it was over, I wanted to give the Russians something. It was snowing. I found a Russian soldier sitting on a pile of rubble. He was eating bread. He had only this piece of bread. He saw me, a boy, and he gave me half the bread. We didn’t say a word, we sat there chewing the bread. Black Russian bread. He kept smiling at me. Finally he said, ‘I must go. Comrade Stalin has asked us to keep right on to Berlin.’ And he picked up his rifle and went.”

“And the commissars and the secret police came after him,” Inge said. “They haven’t picked up their rifles and gone away, have they?”

Miernik opened his eyes. “No,” he said. “Those people are still there.”

“I should think that you’d want to be with them, those wonderful human beings,” Inge said. “You could be a part of the earth, too.”

Miernik stared at her. There was no expression in his face at all. He took off his glasses and threw them against the wall. The lenses broke.

“I am going to dance,” Miernik said.

He staggered over to the phonograph and started it. Still wearing his coat and vest, dark stains of vodka on his buttoned chest, he began to dance. The room shook, he laughed. He pulled Ilona off the floor. Her black hair swung like a curtain. He placed her on his shoulder and began to spin. She straightened her legs and shrieked like a child on a carnival ride; she put her cheek on top of his head and her hair tangled around both their faces. Miernik was shouting in Polish, his voice loud at first, then blown out by laughter and loss of breath. He fell with Ilona on top of him. She lay there for a moment, then kissed him on the forehead and got up. She stood over him with her legs apart, smiling down on him.

Miernik lay on the floor. He still had no breath. In a moment he gathered enough to shout, “Ilona Ivanovna, I forgive you!”

He sucked in more breath and cried, pointing his finger at each of us in turn, “Léon Léonovich, I forgive you! Hassan Hassanevich, I forgive you! Paul Alexandrevich, I forgive you! Nigel Andreevich, I forgive you!”

Miernik staggered to his feet and lifted Inge off the sofa. She tried to pull away. He lifted her by the waist so that her face was in front of his own. “Even you, Inge-what was your father’s name?”

“Peter.”

“Inge Pyotrovna, I forgive you!”

The doorbell rang. “That must be Kalash,” Miernik said. “I will go and forgive him.”

He opened the door to a Swiss policeman. “We have a complaint,” the policeman said. “There is too much noise.”

Miernik would have embraced the policeman, but Brochard stepped between them. “The noise will stop at once,” Brochard said.

“Papers,” the policeman said.

Brochard reached for his pocket. “Not yours. His,” the policeman said.

“This gentleman is a functionary of WRO,” Brochard said. “He has a diplomatic identity card.”

Miernik reached over Brochard’s shoulder and gave the card to the policeman. The policeman wrote in his book and gave it back.

“There will be a formal complaint unless the noise stops,” he said. “I advise you to put this man to bed.”

“Je vous pardonne,” Miernik said.

Brochard went into the hall with the policeman and shut the door. Miernik sat down on the floor. His head sagged. He leaped to his feet and flung open the door. Brochard and the policeman were walking up and down the hallway, deep in conversation. The smile on the policeman’s face went out at the sight of Miernik.

“Do you speak German?” Miernik said to the policeman. The cop stared at him. Brochard let go of the policeman’s elbow and threw up his hands.

“Of course you do,” Miernik said, in German. “You smell like a German. Like gasoline. Gasoline burns. Remember that, you damned machine.”

“You will come with me,” said the policeman.

“I have diplomatic immunity,” Miernik said.

“You cannot insult the Swiss police.”

“I have just done so. I don’t like the color of your uniform.”

Collins and I pulled him back into the room. He struggled with us. Ilona put her palm on his cheek. “Tad,” she said, “come and sit with me.” He followed her to the sofa.

Inge was putting on her coat. “He’s cracked my ribs,” she said. “He’s a bloody Mongolian.”

We went into the hall to talk to the policeman. He asked for all our papers and wrote our names in his book. “You are witnesses,” he said. “I have no more to say at this time.” He went down the stairs.

Collins watched him go. “I don’t think that the copper is going to forgive Tadeusz Jerzyvich,” he said.

Inge came out the door. She gave Brochard a look, and he followed her out. “There’s nothing to do,” he said.

“Mongolian,” Inge said.

Inside, Miernik lay on the sofa with his head in Ilona’s lap. “He’s asleep,” she said.

“Fifteen minutes too late,” Collins said. He beckoned Ilona away from the sofa. She smoothed back Miernik’s hair and stood up.

They all left. I took off Miernik’s shoes and tried to loosen his tie. He opened his eyes.

“Would you agree that I’ve been a fool?” he said. “You were carried away by vodka. We all forgive you. (This business of “I forgive you” is an in-joke at the expense of the Russians. Miernik imitates them: “I had to shoot your mother, Ivan!” “I forgive you, Igor!”)

“That policeman will make a report to the WRO. No contract after that.”

“Yes. And he may file charges, diplomatic immunity or no diplomatic immunity. There’s a law against insulting the police in this country.”

“In all countries.”

“Almost all. It’s a sad world.”

“What about America? What is the law there?”

“You can say what you want to the cops. If they don’t like it, they break your skull.”

Miernik turned over and put his face in the cushions of the sofa. “Tonight I lost everything,” he said. “My contract, my Swiss asylum.”

“We’re both losing sleep,” I said.

“I must become an American. That is the solution.”

“I don’t think you can. You’re a Commie rat.”

“I am a Christian and a lover of truth.”

Miernik sat up. His hair fell into his face. His suit, in spite of everything, was still neatly buttoned. He looked odd without his glasses.

“Paul,” he said, “I am lost. I have insulted the Swiss police. You should have stopped me.

“You were too quick for me. Léon and Nigel both tried to stop you.

“No Swiss asylum now. I am in their files as a troublemaker. The Polish wheel turns against the Swiss wheel, and Miernik is in between.”

“You’d better go to bed.”

“I’d rather go to America.

“With your background, you’ll have to go by Russian submarine.”

“I die. You joke. That’s the American answer to the Polish question.”

“You won’t die, Miernik.”

“You don’t think so?”

“I think you’ve had a lot to drink.”

“I will die, my friend. You will live. Do you know why? Your passport is green, mine is brown.”

“Go to bed.”

Miernik got up and searched for his glasses. He examined the broken lenses and put the frames in his breast pocket. He began to laugh.

“I am now seeing the humor in this situation,” he said. “You are bored. Victims bore you. Would you save me if I were less of a bore?”

I didn’t answer. Miernik smelled his own armpit. “I’ve always thought that I smell like a corpse,” he said. “It’s a Central European malady.”

I said good night. In the street, I looked up at his window. He was moving around inside, clearing up the mess of the party. When he opened the sash to let in the air, I saw that he was wearing glasses again-an extra pair, no doubt.