While Still We Live Read Online Free PDF

darkness of the countryside, Warsaw’s lights seemed gay and confident. Three armed policemen stopped the car for examination on the outskirts of the city. Then, it became a matter of speedy driving through the south-western suburbs, with their broad streets, modern apartment houses, and well-spaced gardens; of skirting the busy centre of the town, with its lighted shops and cafés and tramcars. They reached the River Vistula, and turned north on the new parkway at the enormous Kierbedz Bridge.
    As they neared the Citadel, Andrew leaned forward to give last directions. He was standing on the running-board of thecar as it slowed up at the large gateway. A bleak light above the sentry’s head glared down at them. Andrew had only time to jump off, to salute them, to say something which Sheila didn’t even manage to hear, and then he was hurrying past the rigid sentry. For the second time that night, Sheila felt hot tears sting her eyes. The parting had been so quick, so brisk. She hadn’t meant to say goodbye like this. It was callous. She felt she had been totally inadequate. The American must have felt that too. He broke the long silence of their journey, back into the centre of the town again, only as they passed the Church of the Holy Cross and entered the little side street which would bring them to Professor Korytowski’s flat. And then he said, rather gruffly, “What’s that you have been holding in your hand all this time?”
    Sheila looked down at the sheaf of papers. She had forgotten about them. She said, “Plane tickets to Bucharest,” and stuffed them into her coat pocket.
    “I’ll ’phone the airport while you wash your face,” Stevens said bluntly. And then he addressed the windshield, “Although it beats me how a girl can cry so much for a man she doesn’t care two straws about!”
    Sheila didn’t answer that. She had been wondering too. Perhaps it was because she liked Andrew so much that she was sorry he was in love with her. But she couldn’t tell Stevens that. He wouldn’t see the logic, only the vanity, in that. It would have surprised her greatly to know what Mr. Stevens actually had decided: “Well, she’s honest, at least. No false pretences.” He gave her an encouraging smile, which she hadn’t quite expected, as the car halted in Czacki Street.
    The outside of the house hadn’t changed so much since June, when Sheila had first arrived in Warsaw and had spenta week with Barbara here. Except that the windowpanes were all taped, now; and there was a large notice pasted up outside the porter’s house at the gateway; and inside the gateway itself, there were buckets of sand and water. A round-faced, bald-headed porter was sitting under the solitary entrance light at the doorway to his flat. He lifted an eye from his newspaper to identify them. A radio voice was talking earnestly from an open window behind his head. There was a smell of cooking sausage. A woman’s voice called, “Supper, Henryk!” before her head appeared through the window. She looked at the two newcomers curiously.
    Henryk had risen slowly. He limped towards them, and peered cautiously at Sheila and Stevens as if he had bad eyesight.
    “Well, it’s the American gentleman,” he said. “Going to visit the Professor?”
    “Yes.” Russell Stevens didn’t wait for any further questioning. Sheila had turned her head towards the garden round which the block of apartments was built. She had no desire for anyone to see her face, stained with dust and tears, at this moment. The American seemed to understand, for he took her arm, and led her into the garden courtyard. “Inquisitive old buzzard,” he said under his breath.
    “He’s new, isn’t he? There was a younger man here in June,” Sheila said.
    “The younger chap is now in the navy. Henryk came last month. Usually, I don’t mind him. But I guess my nerves need a good stiff drink tonight.”
    “Do you come here often, then?” They were following the paved