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me to pry your hand open, Father.”
    Malecki opened his hand. Bora picked the torn paper from it, and gave it to the soldier. Politeness of demeanour and voice belied his resolve to intimidate, but he said, “You know nothing about my upbringing, Father Malecki. And my upbringing has nothing to do with the things I have to do.”

28 October
    At noon on Saturday, Salle-Weber blasphemed in the receiver.
    “Where?” He stretched the telephone cord to reach the map of Cracow on the wall opposite his desk. “Where the
hell is that? Oh, I see it, I see it now. Why, how many? Was it our own or was it the army? Well, I should have known! How can you tell me an SS platoon was caught off guard? And in the presence of army officers, too!”
    The incident did not elicit such anger in the army hospital, where army surgeon Lieutenant Colonel Nowotny was about to go to lunch. Leaving his office, he caught sight of the army officer waiting a few steps away in the corridor. There was a prodigious amount of blood on his face and collar, and down the front of his uniform.
    Nowotny decided to delay his lunch. “This way, Captain.” He hooked his forefinger to invite him in. “Let’s take a look. Did you get X-rayed?”
    Bora said he had.
    After flashing a light in his eyes to check the reaction of both pupils, especially concerned with the left one, Nowotny wiped with cotton and looked inside Bora’s right ear for evidence of internal bleeding. Bora winced.
    “Well, you drove yourself here and walked on your own two legs, so you’re not as badly off as you could be. Do you remember what happened?”
    Bora told him, complying with the physician’s request to hold out his hands. Nodding, Nowotny leaned over him. A robust, greying man, with healthy skin and a careless five-o’clock shadow, he had good humour written on his face, in his warm, dark eyes. And if powerful noses mean character, he enjoyed a no-nonsense, prepossessing one.
    “Shake my hand. Now with the other hand. All right. Look straight at me. Follow my finger with your eyes.” As if the nature of the incident struck him as humorous just now, Nowotny began to laugh. “All I can say for you is that you must be from Prussia or Saxony, judging by the hardness of your skull. It’s a miracle if it didn’t crack. It sure bled enough.”

    Bora said nothing. He had switched to a pain-control mode during the probing and cleaning of the wound behind his ear, while Nowotny chatted about how handy it was that German haircuts made it unnecessary for him to shave the skin.
    “It’s a good-sized hole, and the edges have retracted. You’re going to need stitches, so it’ll sting a bit. What were you doing, were you in the middle of a ‘spontaneous manifestation of welcome’?” Bora looked up as much as he could, irritably, and got his head pushed back down for it. “Stay put.” Blood started pouring again, and Bora had to cup his hands to keep it from soiling his breeches.
    “I hope you won’t consider yourself a casualty because of this.”
    “I don’t consider myself a casualty.”
    Nowotny handed him a cloth to wipe his face, and continued his work. “So, who throws rocks at German officers?”
    “I don’t know. It hit me from behind. I didn’t see who did it - there was plenty of rock throwing.”
    “Were there arrests?”
    “Yes, there were arrests.”
    While they waited for the X-rays to be brought in, Nowotny washed his hands in the sink, looking over his shoulder as Bora put his tunic back on.
    “So, have you been playing the piano for many years?”
    “Since I was five. How did you know?”
    “I heard you play the other night, during the reception at Headquarters. Schumann, wasn’t it?”
    “From his concerto in A minor.”
    “You have a gift.” Nowotny nodded with his head towards the sink, for Bora to wash up. “I can tell piano hands when I see them. You have a good span, good muscle control. I’d give my left hand to play Schumann the way