UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
Leon
By Z. J. ROZYCK1 (Banjo! College, Oxford)
EON was a Jew. That was why he came to live with us at our suburban house in Warsaw. P never knew his real name. I never wanted to know. It was better that way for him; for all of us. I don't think even my uncle knew it. He " found " Leon as Leon, a Jew who had miraculously escaped death—but whom death did not spare. During the eight or nine months he lived with us we were gradually. able to piece together some of his more immediate past : the days in the Warsaw ghetto, the death of his wife and child, his escape and wanderings. But twelve months were as far as he allowed his memory to travel—as much as he dared to remem- ber. The quiet, happy life before that was more than Leon's tortured mind could endure to recall.
At first he seemed relieved by the quiet seclusion of his new hiding-place. Our house stood at the end of, a street which, so it was planned before the war, was to have had at least fifty yards added to it before ending in a cul-de-sac. That was in the plans—long-buried in the ruins of the town-planning department. Our house was the last to be built, and it now stood exposed to the uneven wasteland which was to have been the site of a permanent holiday village, and which now offered an endless playground for children and dogs.
Leon's room was in that part of the house which faced this dreary field. He seemed to enjoy sitting by the window, watching the interminable games of hide-and-seek, or, when this bored them, the wild charges of savage red Indians which the children staged with the terrifying reality of a runaway herd of little beasts. After a time Leon became the silent judge of these games and manoeuvres, and the children took great care not to run out of his field of vision. When, which was . seldom, they could not see him sitting there, his large spectacles looming in the shadow, by mutual consent they would abandon their wars and, sitting round an upturned boulder or tree- trunk, pass away the time discussing their virtually unknown spectator, guessing wildly at his identity and past life. My younger brother would then become the centre of attraction; he could always be relied upon to produce some piece of hot news which would explain Leon's absence from his observa- tion post.
That was in the summer of 1943. With shorter days came rain and colder weather. Leon's solitude became more com- plete. It was obvious that a new phase of trial was beginning for him. Suddenly he became more talkative. But, far from it being a relief to him, we could see that it hurt him more acutely than his former silence. Yet he seemed to like it better. Sharp, vivid pain at least told him that he was sur- rounded by reality; living and fighting—not letting himself be gnawed by oppressive, intangible emptiness. And there were no longer children to be watched at play.
Leon then started going out on long walks. - Leaving the house in the morning, he would not return till the police-hour, when it was already dark. My uncle once saw him, from a distance, at the other end of the city—wandering aimlessly, watching people, as if looking for somebody. For a few weeks, perhaps months—it was a long time ago—these walks became Leon's daily routine. He would never say where he was going, or where he had been, and we never- asked. Soon it all appeared quite normal. We got used to his walks, and he to our acceptance of them. We were glad that he had found something to ease his strained mind. But this was not for long. It could not be. Leon's health soon began to fail him. The miles and miles he walked each day took more energy out of him than he had to spare. Also, the weather had changed for the worse. Polish winter is not just another season, but with more rain. Sleet and icy eastern winds, alternating with dry frost and snow-storms, are not climatic variations which can be over- come with an extra pullover and a pair of gloves. All Leon had was an old raincoat, and not even a hat. With Leon's illness the house had suddenly become too large. Too many objects threatened at the slightest movement to shatter the heavy, uncomfortable silence which his spasmodic cough made even more oppressive. It felt like living in a cata- comb overloaded with heaps of scrap iron, precariously balanced and ready to come down with a reverberating crash if touched. Poor Leon ! This sensation did not elude him. He felt it in us, and it made him all the more miserable. He was afraid to speak to us to add to our discomfort. Only his cough defied him.
I do not know how long Leon was ill. It could have been one, two, perhaps three months. It could have been longer. Time, measured in -days, weeks and months, had no meaning for me then. Winter had come and stayed. The view from the window, Leon's window, was always the same. A thick white layer of snow had evened out the rugged wasteland which was to have been a permanent holiday village, and which now seemed to have no end. It met the sky somewhere, but in the greyness of the days it seemed endless—like my vigils in Leon's room.
Leon recovered. Slowly his strength returned, and he was able to leave his bed for several hours every day. But it did not make him happier. What could he do out of bed, except be in everybody's way ? He preferred to keep to his room. But what he preferred was not what his shattered nerves could stand. Very soon he was again pacing the streets. But the Warsaw he now found was not the Warsaw he had come to know so intimately only a few months before. Buildings, streets had not changed, it is true; there had been only a few, minor, air-raids during his illness; but everything else about the city had changed. It was now packed with retreating Germans, and on clear days people claimed to be able to hear the dull thud of distant artillery barrages. This was the talk of the streets—this, and calculations of how much longer the German armies would be able to hold out. In their enthusi-' asm the crowds gave little thought to the fast-approaching -future; it seemed as if they had determined to drink of the cup of hope to the full, despite the awareness that it might 'contain poison.
Yet perhaps Leon was unaware of this. The dirty-green uniforms he saw everywhere had probably blunted his vision too much. Their menacing drabness persecuted him; he began to feel and behave like a hunted animal, scared by meaning glances and stares. A few days were enough to drive him back to his room. He was ill again, but there was no cure for this illness, except the one we all dreaded. But not Leon. Courage may have failed him in the streets; it did not fail him in the seclusion of his sanctuary. He decided to die, and passed away as quietly and unobtrusively as\he had come. The poison he swallowed was sweeter than that which would have tortured him had he lived a month or two longer—and died in the ruins of the city which was his only remaining love.
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