Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  At the end of one day of unremitting storms, Wladek and Florentyna took advantage of the rain by washing themselves in a puddle of water which formed on the stone floor of the upper dungeon. Neither of them noticed that the Baron’s eyes widened as Wladek removed his tattered shirt and rolled over in the relatively clean water, continuing to rub himself until white streaks appeared on his body. Suddenly, the Baron spoke.

  “Wladek”—the word was barely audible—“I cannot see you clearly,” he said, the voice cracking. “Come here.”

  Wladek was stupefied by the sound of his patron’s voice after so long a silence and didn’t even look in his direction. He was immediately sure that it presaged the madness that already held two of the older servants in its grip.

  “Come here, boy.”

  Wladek obeyed fearfully and stood before the Baron, who narrowed his enfeebled eyes in a gesture of intense concentration as he groped toward the boy. He ran his finger over Wladek’s chest and then peered at him incredulously.

  “Wladek, can you explain this small deformity?”

  “No, sir,” said Wladek, embarrassed. “It has been with me since birth. My foster mother used to say it was the mark of God the Father upon me.”

  “Stupid woman. It is the mark of your own father,” the Baron said softly, and relapsed into silence for some minutes. Wladek remained standing in front of him, not moving a muscle. When at last the Baron spoke again, his voice was brisk. “Sit down, boy.”

  Wladek obeyed immediately. As he sat down, he noticed once again the heavy band of silver, now hanging loosely around the Baron’s wrist. A shaft of light through a crack in the wall made the magnificent engraving of the Rosnovski coat of arms glitter in the darkness of the dungeon.

  “I do not know how long the Germans intend to keep us locked up here. I thought at first that this war would be over in a matter of weeks. I was wrong, and we must now consider the possibility that it will continue for a very long time. With that thought in mind, we must use our time more constructively, as I know my life is nearing an end.”

  “No, no,” Wladek began to protest, but the Baron continued as if he had not heard him.

  “Yours, my child, has yet to begin. I will, therefore, undertake the continuation of your education.”

  The Baron did not speak again that day. It was as if he was considering the implications of his pronouncement. Thus Wladek gained his new tutor, and as they possessed neither reading nor writing materials, he was made to repeat everything the Baron said. He was taught great tracts from the poems of Adam Mickiewicz and Jan Kochanowski and long passages from The Aeneid. In that austere classroom Wladek learned geography, mathematics and added to his command of four languages—Russian, German, French and English. But once again his happiest moments were when he was taught history. The history of his nation through a hundred years of partition, the disappointed hopes for a united Poland, the further anguish of the Poles at Napoleon’s crushing loss to Russia in 1812. He learned of the brave tales of earlier and happier times, when King Jan Casimir had dedicated Poland to the Blessed Virgin after repulsing the Swedes at Czestochowa, and how the mighty Prince Radziwill, great landowner and lover of hunting, had held his court in the great castle near Warsaw. Wladek’s final lesson each day was on the family history of the Rosnovskis. Again and again he was told—never tiring of the tale—how the Baron’s illustrious ancestor who had served in 1794 under General Dabrowski and then in 1809 under Napoleon himself had been rewarded by the great Emperor with land and a barony. He also learned that the Baron’s grandfather had sat on the Council of Warsaw and that his father had played his own part in building the new Poland. Wladek found such happiness when the Baron turned his little dungeon room into a classroom.

  The guards at the dungeon door were changed every four hours and conversation between them and the prisoners was strengst verboten. In snatches and fragments Wladek learned of the progress of the war, of the actions of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, of the rise of revolution in Russia and of her subsequent withdrawal from the war by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

  Wladek began to believe that the only escape from the dungeons for the inmates was death. The doors to that filthy hellhole opened nine times during the next two years, and Wladek began to wonder if he was equipping himself with knowledge that would be useless if he never again knew freedom.

  The Baron continued to tutor him despite his progressively failing sight and hearing. Wladek had to sit closer and closer to him each day.

  Florentyna—his sister, mother and closest friend—engaged in a more physical struggle against the rankness of their predicament. Occasionally the guards would provide her with a fresh bucket of sand or straw to cover the soiled floor, and the stench became a little less oppressive for the next few days. Vermin scuttled around in the darkness for any dropped scraps of bread or potato and brought with them disease and still more filth. The sour smell of decomposed human and animal urine and excrement assaulted their nostrils and regularly brought Wladek to a state of sickness and nausea. He longed above all to be clean again and would sit for hours gazing at the dungeon ceiling, recalling the steaming tubs of hot water and the good, rough soap with which the niania had, so short a distance away and so long a time ago, washed the accretion of a mere day’s fun from Leon and himself, with many a muttering and tut-tut for muddy knees or a dirty fingernail.

  By the spring of 1918, only fifteen of the twenty-six captives incarcerated with Wladek were still alive. The Baron was always treated by everyone as the master, while Wladek had become his acknowledged steward. Wladek felt saddest for his beloved Florentyna, now twenty. She had long since despaired of life and was convinced that she was going to spend her remaining days in the dungeons. Wladek never admitted in her presence to giving up hope, but although he was only twelve, he too was beginning to wonder if he dared believe in any future.

  One evening, early in the fall, Florentyna came to Wladek’s side in the larger upper dungeon.

  “The Baron is calling for you.”

  Wladek rose quickly, leaving the allocation of food to a senior servant, and went to the old man. The Baron was in severe pain, and Wladek saw with terrible clarity—as though for the first time—how illness had eroded whole areas of the Baron’s flesh, leaving the green-mottled skin covering a now skeletal face. The Baron asked for water, and Florentyna brought it from the half-full mug that hung from a stick outside the stone grille. When the great man had finished drinking, he spoke slowly and with considerable difficulty.

  “You have seen so much of death, Wladek, that one more will make little difference to you. I confess that I no longer fear escaping this world.”

  “No, no, it can’t be!” cried Wladek, clinging to the old man for the first time in his life. “We have so nearly triumphed. Don’t give up, Baron. The guards have assured me that the war is coming to an end and then we will soon be released.”

  “They have been promising us that for months, Wladek. We cannot believe them any longer, and in any case I fear I have no desire to live in the new world they are creating.” He paused as he listened to the boy crying. The Baron’s only thought was to collect the tears as drinking water, and then he remembered that tears were saline and he laughed to himself. “Call for my butler and first footman, Wladek.”

  Wladek obeyed immediately, not knowing why they should be required.

  The two servants, awakened from a deep sleep, came and stood in front of the Baron. After three years’ captivity sleep was the easiest commodity to come by. They still wore their embroidered uniforms, but one could no longer tell that they had once been the proud Rosnovski colors of green and gold. They stood silently waiting for their master to speak.

  “Are they there, Wladek?” asked the Baron.

  “Yes, sir. Can you not see them?” Wladek realized for the first time that the Baron was now completely blind.

  “Bring them forward so that I might touch them.”

  Wladek brought the two me