Hope

The somewhat Laurel-and-Hardyish pair pushed us ahead of them through the crowds, which parted readily to allow us to pass. As we got into Targowa, our two guards closed in tightly upon us. The streets were crowded with beggars and pedlars and people going about their business. At the kerb, two men were changing the wheel of a truck heavily laden with beets, while a man with a shotgun sat atop them balanced on a bundle of sacks. No one gave us more than a glance. It was too cold to enquire too deeply into the misfortunes of others, and too dangerous. There were no cops in sight and no one showed concern as we were escorted along the street. We had gone no more than fifty yards before the thin one signalled to an entrance that led into one of the open courtyards that were a feature of these buildings.

The cobbled yard, littered with rusty junk and rubbish that could not be burned for fuel, held a couple of cars and a line of large garbage bins. It was difficult to decide if the cars were in use or had been dumped here, for many of the trucks and cars on the street were even more rusty and dented than these ancient vehicles.

‘Here,’ said Was and prodded me with his finger. The fabric of the building was in a startling state of neglect, with gaping holes and broken brickwork and windows that were held in position by improvised patchworks of timber and tin. The only fitments in good order were the bars and grilles that fitted over half a dozen of the lower windows, and the ancient steel door through which we were ushered.

There were more grilles inside. They were made from steel and fitted from floor to ceiling. Along this ‘wall’ there was a long table, like the lunch counter of a roadside cafe. Behind the counter there was a heavy safe and some filing cabinets. The other half of the room – the part where we were standing – was windowless and empty of furnishings except for a calendar advertising canned milk.

The man who called himself Was closed the steel door that led to the yard. With only a couple of fluorescent tubes to illuminate the room it became stark and shadowless. ‘Through here and upstairs,’ said Was. He opened a door and pushed us into a smaller room. ‘Upstairs,’ said Was again, and we went through a narrow door that opened on to the lobby of a grand old apartment house. I led the way up the wide marble staircase. On the landing wall hung two grey racks of dented mail-boxes. Some of the flaps were hanging open; it would need a great deal of confidence to put mail into them. Perhaps the whole building was owned by these men. At the top of the second flight of steps we came upon a silent tableau. Two flashy young women were propping a plump well-dressed man against the wall. He was white-faced and very drunk, his tie loosened and wine stains down his crisp white shirt. The trio watched us as we passed, as curious about us as we were about them, but the three of them remained very still at the sight of our escorts and no one spoke.

‘In here.’ There were two doors on the top landing. They were freshly painted light brown. They’d been repainted so many times that the decorations in the woodwork, the peep-hole and the bell push were all clogged with paint. There was a surfeit of wiring too: phone and electricity wires had been added and none ever removed, so that there were dozens of wires twisted and drooping and sometimes hanging to show where a section of them had been chopped away to make room for more. He unlocked one of the doors. ‘In here,’ he said again and pushed Dicky, who fell against me. And we stumbled into the darkness.

‘Stand against the wall,’ said Was. He switched on the light. It was a low-wattage bulb but it gave enough light to see that one side of the room had sandbags piled up to a height of six feet or more. Was slipped out of his pea-jacket and hung it on the door. This revealed him to be wearing a dark blue sweater and a military-style leather belt with a pistol in a leather holster. It was a Colt ‘Official Police .38’, something of a museum piece but no less lethal for that. ‘Hand over your wallets, both of you bastards,’ he said. The fat one stood by and grinned.