The Adjacent Part 16

'How long is it since you last saw him?'

'Four years ago, in 1939. You are what, twenty-two?'

'Twenty-one.'

'Tomasz was about that age when I last saw him. You look exactly as I remember him it's uncanny to see you. But of course I don't know what has happened in four years. He will be different now.'

'Have you heard from him?'

She said, 'Not since the n.a.z.is invaded. I must tell you. Today I wanted only to meet you, only to ask for my purse back, and I thought I would take you for a short flight to show how grateful I am to you. I brought food because I would be hungry, and I brought enough for you too. That was all that I intended: a short flight around your airfield, some sandwiches to share, maybe a little walk and some conversation. Very British, just as I like it. But until I saw you I had no idea the effect you would have on me. I have to tell you.'

10.

Michael Torrance writes: It is 1953, ten years since I met Krystyna Roszca. The Second World War is long over, the past has gone, everything is different in the world, in my life, in everybody's lives. I am no longer, I hope, the callow young man I was then. But on that warm day in the early summer of 1943, Krystyna told me the story of how she travelled to Britain and became a pilot for the ATA. Of course, she told me in her own way, in her lovely, accented English. I cannot reproduce that, but I was so infatuated with her that everything she told me burned into my consciousness. I have never forgotten her story. It is of course not so different from many stories from that time: a lot of young people met each other briefly during the war, but were then roughly parted in some final, often distressing way. As soon afterwards as I could I jotted down a few notes on what she had told me, but in fact her story was vivid in my memory. I remembered, or I believed I remembered, everything. I have always intended to write down what she said, and at last I have done it. It is as true as I can make it. I have tried to write it in her words, although all I can do is offer my remembered version.

I still hope and believe that one day Krystyna might read this, and will then understand that there was not one tragic wartime parting in her life, but two.

11.

THE PILOT.

I was born on a small farm in Krakow Province, the wojewodztwo of Krakow, about twenty kilometres to the east of the city. It was open farmland all around, although there was a village close by called Pobiednik. I had three brothers and a sister. My father was called Gwidon Roszca, my mother Joanna. Our family was poor and I was often hungry as I grew up. My parents always made sure I attended school, which I enjoyed.

When I was aged eleven my father succeeded in selling a large number of his herd of cattle to a man he knew only as a local landowner. The money briefly made a great deal of difference to my parents, but for me the sale had a much more important impact. It turned out that the landowner was an important aristocrat and legislator, and during the transaction he must have noticed me. After the sale of the animals, I discovered to my shock that I too had been sold, and that I was to move in with his family as a companion for his own child. Can you imagine how horrible that felt? I believed I had been rejected by my parents, discarded as unwanted. I had failed in everything. My mother cried for three days and nights, and my father would not speak to me. Later, I was to discover that it was not a form of slavery but a voluntary arrangement that might be brought to an end at any time, and that the intentions of all the adults were good, if misguided. I was not to know that at the time.

One day, not long after, I was dressed up and driven to the centre of Krakow itself, where I was deposited at the rear entrance to a large and beautiful house in the Old Town, not far from St Florian's Gate and overlooking part of the Rynek.

That house was to become my permanent home. I was just a girl from a poor farm so I was overwhelmed and intimidated by the family's wealth: there were dozens of servants, and the house was opulently furnished and richly decorated. My re-education and new upbringing began on that day, and one of the first things drilled into me was a need to be circ.u.mspect about the family and their ways. That discretion is still with me, but I can tell you that Rafal Grudzinski, Count of Lowicz, was one of the most wealthy and influential men in Krakow. Apart from the fact that he owned great stretches of farmland, and several manufacturing companies in the north of Poland, there is little I am able to say about him. I have no idea what has happened to him or his wife since the n.a.z.is and Soviets invaded our country.

I was educated, I was groomed in the courtesies and manners of the cla.s.s I had joined, I grew up. I spent the years 1928 to 1939 with the Grudzinski family, fulfilling the role that had been created for me when I was given up by my parents. That role was something I did not understand at first, but eventually I learned that Madame the Countess had become unable to bear more children after the birth of her only son, Tomasz.

I was eleven when I was taken to the Grudzinski household and by the time I was sixteen I had become, as I thought, a full member of the family. In my heart I knew I was still just a little peasant girl, but the grooming had given me a superficial sheen acceptable to this important and socially prominent family.

The count was a renowned and enthusiastic sportsman: he was a swimmer, a horseman, a shooter, a sailor and a climber. He went in for all of these activities in a wholehearted way, competing whenever compet.i.tion could be found. Poland was mostly a poor country, but the count was rich beyond anything I could imagine. In 1934, just after my seventeenth birthday, he developed an interest in aviation, bought a small and fast aircraft, learnt to fly it, and within a year was competing at international level in several European countries: the south of France, along the Baltic coasts of Germany and Poland, in Austria, Sweden and Estonia. At first he would disappear from Krakow for a week or two at a time, then return either jubilant or dispirited, but it was not long before he was expecting the family to follow him to these events. The countess showed no interest in any of this, so it meant that Tomasz and I, and a retinue of servants, were the recruited support team.

I should describe what was developing between Tomasz and me. At first I had been completely in awe of him he was the same age as me, just a few weeks older, but he had been born into an easy and affluent way of life. I found him difficult and arrogant. I think it is true to say that for some time we wholeheartedly loathed each other.

But within a few years, around the time we started accompanying Count Lowicz to his sporting events, matters became rather different. I found I was only happy when I was with Tomasz, and whenever we were separated, such as the weeks we spent at our different schools, I pined for him and dreamed up a hundred schemes for escaping somehow from where I was so that I could be with him. I knew without being told that he was feeling the same about me. For both of us the count's long trips to flying compet.i.tions were a chance to be together for several days at a time.

During the first two trips to air races one was in Monte Carlo, the other on the Adriatic coast of Italy I barely registered what was happening, so full of joy was I to be with Tomasz. Both meetings were a cheerful chaos of boats, crowds, hot suns.h.i.+ne and annoyingly noisy aircraft. But then we travelled to Tallinn in Estonia, where the race itself was just a part of a much larger festival of sailing and flying. Although it was high summer it was cooler than it had been in the other places, there were not the same crowds and people were much more interested in the actual flying. For me, during the first day and a half, it meant that while the count was busy with his mechanics and his plane Tomasz and I had plenty of time together alone.

Then it happened. One of the count's racing friends asked Tomasz if he would like a flight in an aeroplane. Tomasz agreed, climbed into the spare seat at the rear and was flown around the harbour and along the coast before returning. Then it was my turn.

We took off and within the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds everything in my life simply changed.

I wanted to be, I had to be, a flier. I pleaded with the man for another flight, but that was not possible for some reason. I had to be content watching the count and his twenty-odd friends and compet.i.tors roaring past at what looked like immense speed. Tomasz too seemed keen to learn to fly, and while we watched the long race we talked excitedly of how we could arrange some lessons.

A few weeks later, while we were still taking lessons at an airfield near Krakow, the count presented Tomasz with a little two-seat RWD-3 high-wing monoplane.

I qualified as a solo pilot within three weeks.

Two months after that, at the end of yet another week of extended lessons with his tutor, Tomasz confessed to me that he was not a natural pilot, that he usually felt sick in the air, that the movements of the plane frightened him, and that whenever he took the controls he felt paralysed by terror. He said he knew he was never going to be able to fly solo.

But he agreed that I had taken to the air as if it were my natural element. From that day, with Tomasz's encouragement, the RWD-3 became in effect my own plane, although I never flew anywhere without Tomasz in the seat behind me.

Flying became our lives together. A private airstrip was carved out of a long piece of the count's estate a few kilometres to the north-east of the city. We were free to fly as often as we liked. We took advantage of that freedom. At first I was guiltily conscious of what had happened, that I had leapt ahead of Tomasz. I did not know of any other woman pilot, in Poland or elsewhere. Flying was a man's sport, and to be a pilot was a male prerogative. One day I confessed these feelings to Tomasz, but he immediately told me not to be foolish. He told me he loved to fly with me, that the feelings of fear and sickness had left him, and that he saw our flying as a way of our being alone together.

I was in love with Tomasz, but I was pa.s.sionate about flying, obsessed with it. Every time I took off that pa.s.sion increased.

Money partly insulates the wealthy from the perils of history, so while we were falling in love with each other, and flitting about the Polish skies, we were to some extent immune from the large and dangerous political changes that were taking place in other European countries. Not that we were blind to them. In fact, it was soon impossible to ignore them because the rise of fascism and communism in countries bordering ours was a real concern.

Much against my private wishes, though not in fact Tomasz's, the count bought his son a reservist commission in the Polish Army, and he joined the Pozna Uhlan Regiment. It meant that Tomasz was often away, but somehow I managed to shut out the realities and our loving friends.h.i.+p continued whenever he was at home.

In the following summer I entered my first air race: the Challenge Tourist Trophy, flown on a course above the d.y.k.es bordering the Zuider Zee in the Netherlands. I came sixteenth. At the next race two weeks later, in a valley in Austria, my little aircraft suffered engine trouble and I was forced to land early. I damaged the undercarriage when I made a sudden landing in a field.

Two weeks later, with the plane repaired, I entered another race in Pomerania: the IG Farben Cla.s.sic Cup. I came in fifth. After this race I started to become recognized. I was not just the only woman pilot taking part, I was actually beating most of the men. A newspaper published my photograph and a magazine interviewed me. Tomasz said he had never felt so proud of me.

Later that week Tomasz asked me to marry him.

It was almost as if this simple act of love set in train the upheaval that was to drive us apart. At the same time as Tomasz proposed to me, the n.a.z.is in Germany were making an endless stream of demands on the Polish government, and issuing threats against the Polish people. A strip of our territory lay between Germany and the German-speaking port of Gdask Hitler wanted it removed. The noises from the east were no more rea.s.suring, with Stalin's avowed aim of collectivizing by force the whole of Europe. He intended to start with those countries lying immediately to the west of the Soviet Union.

So we were in no doubt about what was going on in the world around us. However, for Tomasz and myself there were many more problems on our minds. When we broke our news to the family, expecting a joyous response, we were appalled when we discovered how hostile his parents were. Madame the Countess, in particular, said immediately that she would disallow it. She was abusive to me, calling me a semi-literate peasant and a parasite, and accusing me of trying to get my hands on their money.

It was a shocking end to an illusion. For the second time in my life I felt rejected by people I thought I could trust. The illusion of happiness ended, but the practical form of it continued in an unnervingly undefined way. Tomasz and I went on living in the family house in Krakow, with nothing more being said aloud, but the atmosphere was thick with unstated resentments. He and I escaped to go flying together whenever we could, but even that was becoming more difficult because of the threats of war.

We knew how dangerous the situation was becoming when Tomasz was called up from the reserve. He left immediately and I did not see him again for nearly two weeks. It was a nervous time for me, because with Tomasz gone my position in the household was ambiguous and tenuous. Then he returned, striding sensationally into the house in full uniform. He had never in the past disguised his admiration for the valorous traditions of the Polish Cavalry Brigades, and as a first-cla.s.s horseman and the son of a count he was ideal officer material. He had joined the Uhlans, and was now a First Hussar in charge of a cavalry troop of more than a hundred men.

My heart melted to see him in his splendid uniform, but I was full of dread and fear. The Germans had fleets of warplanes and hundreds of battle tanks I could not imagine how brave hors.e.m.e.n armed only with sabres and revolvers could put up any resistance at all, should it come to that.

Tomasz returned to Pozna, and I was alone again. I flew my plane whenever I could, but the emptiness of the seat behind me kept acting as a reminder of my increasing isolation.

One day, towards the end of August, I landed at the count's private airstrip to be greeted by a man who had often visited the Grudzinski family house as a guest. I now discovered he was a senior staff officer, dressed in the uniform of the Polish Air Force: Major General Zaremski. My heart started thudding: I a.s.sumed immediately that he was waiting for me with bad news about Tomasz, but those fears were soon allayed.

The general explained what he wanted. The Polish government was facing the overwhelming might of the German Luftwaffe and was redeploying every fighting aircraft and every trained pilot. An invasion by the German Army appeared to be inevitable. At the same time, the government was rapidly moving offices and key staff out of Warsaw and into smaller regional cities and towns. They were recruiting civilians to perform pa.s.senger, courier or delivery flights across Poland. I was by this time one of the most prominent aviators in the country and the Lieutenant General of the Air Force, the commander in chief, had personally ordered that I be approached.

Naturally, when General Zaremski told me why he was there I agreed at once.

It was then I noticed a larger plane parked alongside the hangar at the end of the strip. This was to be my first a.s.signment as a courier: I was to transport General Zaremski back to Warsaw as a pa.s.senger. As we walked across to the plane he told me not to ask how he and the aircraft had arrived at the airstrip, because the new emergency regulations forbade high-ranking officers from piloting themselves. I guessed the answer and said no more.

While the engines were warming up I pushed my little RWD-3 into the hangar, disabled it by detaching several control wires and removing the magneto cables, then locked it away. I wondered if I should ever fly it or even see it again.

A few minutes later I took off in the Air Force plane, and flew to Warsaw. The major general acted as my navigator. I did not mention that I had never flown a two-engined aircraft before.

A hectic week followed. I flew across Poland in a variety of different aircraft, some ancient, some modern, all of them unfamiliar to me. I flew single- and double-engined planes, and for one journey even a Junkers Ju-52 trimotor. I learnt as I flew. Staff meetings and defence strategy conferences were daily events. I frequently carried confidential doc.u.ments in sealed bags. I have never been so excited in my life! On September 1, the sixth day of my unexpected recruitment into the air force, the n.a.z.is invaded our country, crossing the border in huge numbers at many different points. Although it was mainly a land attack the Luftwaffe was active too, using dive-bombers to attack Warsaw and other major cities, and also attempting, with terrifying success, to put our own air force out of action.

I flew every day, and sometimes at night, frequently seeing German tanks roaming across our countryside and farmland. Sometimes I came under fire from the ground. Once I saw a squad of three Luftwaffe fighters high in the sky to the south of me that morning I was carrying six army nurses to the town of Bydgoszcz, where the hospital had been damaged by bombing but was still functioning. They were critically short of nurses. To avoid those fighters I dived steeply towards the ground, seeking cover, but the Luftwaffe fliers did not spot me and an hour later I landed the aircraft safely. That afternoon I was back in Warsaw, ferrying a group of senior staff officers for an aerial view of the fighting.

I slept when and where I could, ate whenever I had the chance. The work was exhausting but exhilarating. I felt I was doing something practical to defend my country from invasion, even though every day brought more evidence that we were losing the war. One morning I was given a two-seat RWD-14 Czapla, and instructed to ferry a senior officer from Warsaw to Kielce. During the flight he told me that the German Army was advancing on Krakow from the west. After I had safely delivered him I immediately flew further south to Krakow, heading for the count's airstrip. From the air there appeared to be no sign of the enemy, but I circled around three times until I was certain it was safe to land.

I taxied the plane to a large copse of trees growing on the side of the field. I parked it there, knowing there was no way of hiding the large and c.u.mbersome aircraft from anyone on the ground, but hoping it would not be spotted from the air.

The car I had used to reach the airstrip was still where I had left it, on the day the major general commissioned me. I started it up without difficulty and drove at breakneck speed into Krakow. As I pa.s.sed through the outer areas of the city I could see that something terrible was already going on. Four columns of dark, roiling smoke were rising in the distance, on the western side. I saw several straggling lines of people, heading away in the direction from which I had come. They looked to be in a frightful and pathetic state.

I drove towards the centre of the city I could see St Florian's Gate, high and clean against the sky, but there were several fires close to it. The air was full of smoke.

The road that I was driving along towards the Rynek was unexpectedly blocked a large house had collapsed across the street, and pieces of burning timber were falling from the two buildings that had been on each side of it. I slowed the car, appalled by the sight. I had never before seen such destruction, such evidence of human loss and tragedy: wallpapered rooms were exposed, pieces of furniture hung from the broken floors, flames licked at the huge pile of bricks and other debris into which the building had fallen, beams and rafters rested on the ground at crazy angles, some of them charred and smoking. The remains of children's toys, clothes, fabrics, hung dankly like dead leaves.

I tried to drive past but the road was impa.s.sable for a vehicle. I backed away, parked the car, then continued on foot.

I had still not reached the Rynek when I came across a troop of Polish soldiers attempting to put out a fire that had started inside a shop. I knew the shop: I had visited it many times. I went around the men, keeping my distance, covering my mouth and nose with a part of my sleeve, but then suddenly a familiar voice shouted, 'Krystyna!'

It was Tomasz, his hair tousled and his face and arms blackened by the smoke. He was in his army uniform, but he had removed his jacket and was working in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves with the other men. Of course I rushed to him and we embraced as if we had not seen each other in years. I could hardly believe my luck in finding him here, so close to the house where we had lived. We had to raise our voices to make ourselves heard, because of the many different noises around us: distant and near-distant explosions, bells ringing, people shouting, the roar of flames and, all too often, the horrible, hollow fracturing noise as yet another of Krakow's old wooden-framed buildings collapsed when the fires ate away at the interiors. The fires were spreading, apparently unstoppably, all along the street.

He shouted, 'Krystyna, it's not safe for you. The Germans are already entering the city.'

'If it's not safe for me it's not safe for you.'

'I have to be here. I'm under orders. You must get out immediately. Do you still have the car?' I waved back vaguely in the direction of where I had left it. The street now was choked with smoke. 'Then use it. Warsaw has already fallen to the Germans. They'll have Krakow before today is out. Do you have enough fuel in the car to get to Tarnow? The Germans have not reached there yet. My parents and some of the servants have already gone to Tarnow.'

'I want to be with you, Tomasz. Not with them.'

'I know, I understand. But my father is well known there. You'll be able to buy petrol in Tarnow. I've heard some of the senior officers saying that there is going to be a Polish government in exile in Romania, and there will be transport from Lwow. So you must get to Lwow as quickly as you can.'

'Not without you,' I said.

'I'll come later. We will be withdrawing soon.'

'Come now!' I said loudly, desperately, against the racket of a fire appliance rus.h.i.+ng past.

'You can see I can't!' he shouted, indicating his squad of men. 'I have a duty. But there's a plan tonight our brigades are going to regroup and head south. Mine is one of them, so I will meet you in Lwow. Not straight away, but in a few days. Use the people you know in the Air Force.'

'Tomasz, my love! What is happening here? Have you been to your house?'

'The house has been abandoned for now. Three of the servants stayed to try to take care of the place, but I told them this morning to flee the rest have gone to Lublin. Everyone else is in Tarnow. They should be safe there.'

He kept glancing across to the blaze while he spoke, obviously torn between talking to me and carrying out his duty.

There were two more gigantic explosions, somewhere behind us, in the next street, terrifyingly close to where we were standing. Gla.s.s in many windows burst out and cascaded down into the street. I was left breathless and frightened by the sheer violence of the explosions.

'Those bombs landed in Floriaska!' Tomasz shouted hoa.r.s.ely Floriaska was the name of the main street leading from the Gate to the Rynek, where his parents' house was situated. 'I'll have to take the men over there!'

He left me, clambered back over the rubble to the blazing shop and gave hurried orders to the two NCOs working with the troops. Then Tomasz grabbed my hand and we ran through the plumes of swirling smoke, hindered by the piles of rubble on the road, much of which was still burning. I realized we had reached the Rynek, the market-place in the centre of the Old Town. Miraculously, the beautiful Cloth Hall, the Sukiennice, was not damaged, although thick smoke was surging around it. We hurried past the medieval building, looking for the count's house. Then we halted.

Tomasz stood beside me, staring forward.

In all the chaos there was a moment of seeming stillness. Across the Rynek, on the far side, three houses were burning out of control. The one in the centre of the three was the count's house: the glorious townhouse, with its ancient windows, carved gables, timbered walls, built at least three hundred years before, was engulfed. There was something unreal, grotesque about the sight I looked away, glanced at the sky, so blue and clear beyond the thick coils of smoke rising from all parts of the city. My eyes were streaming with tears, and I could barely breathe.

'It's gone,' Tomasz said.

'Your home.' It was all I could manage to say.

'No!' He turned towards me and placed both his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. 'Not my home. The place I lived. The place you lived. Ever since you were there with me I have wanted only one thing and that is to be able to leave that house.'

Part of the roof collapsed down into the flames below, sending up a huge display of sparks and a thick burst of grey smoke.

'It's over, Tomasz.'

'I love my parents but I loathed the life they led.'

'Their way of life brought us together,' I said.

'Yes, of course. They meant well then, but I hated what they said to you.'

'Are you sure there's no one trapped inside there?' I said, watching the flames grow higher. The building next door to it looked as if it too were about to collapse.

'I searched the place this morning. No one was inside and all the rooms were closed.' He was already stepping back, away from the blaze. A loud explosion went off in the street beyond the count's house, making us both turn away instinctively, throwing our hands up to protect our heads, but although we saw pieces of wreckage flying in the air, and a rising ball of fire, the blast somehow did not strike us. 'It's the end, Krystyna. That life we had has gone. As soon as this war is over we will be together.'

A formation of German aircraft appeared overhead, high and silhouetted black against the afternoon sky. They were Junkers Ju-87 Stukas, the n.a.z.is' dreaded dive-bombers. They appeared to be circling. Their engines throbbed above the sounds of the inferno in the town. One by one the aircraft turned away from the formation, went into a steep dive and flew at a horrible speed directly towards the ground. There were sirens on each aircraft, set to howl an unspeakable wailing noise which added an element of deliberate and s.a.d.i.s.tic terrorizing. The dive-bombers were aiming themselves at the buildings by the river, half a kilometre away from where we were standing. No one on the ground was firing back at them. The lovely old city was at their mercy, and they had none of that.

Tomasz seized my wrist and we began running, retracing our steps. Broken gla.s.s and shattered masonry was all around. Within a minute we reached the place where the shop had been, but in the short time we were away the building had been almost completely destroyed. The squad of soldiers had disappeared.

Tomasz looked alarmed.

'I have to find them,' he said.

'They could be anywhere,' I said, because I had a sudden irrational urge to make him flee with me.

'No we have orders. This street, and the one beyond.'

'Come with me, Tomasz. This is h.e.l.l.'

'I can't abandon my men!'

'Yes, you can. The Polish cause is lost. There's nothing to fight for any more. The n.a.z.is will move in and round up everyone who has been in the army.'

'We fight to the end.'