'You spoke with her?' I said.

'I've just told you; I went to Berlin to see her and make the travel arrangements.'

'She wanted to come to Poland?' asked Rupert.

'Yes.'

'And the Germans are letting her go?'

'She wasn't a prisoner,' said Urban. 'She was just a patient in the Charité hospital in Berlin. Making her a Polish citizen simplified the paperwork for everyone: here and there too. Technically she is being repatriated.' He smiled and then explained the joke. 'She's never been to Poland before, but technically she's being repatriated.'

'In hospital?' I said.

'Don't try to make a fool of me, Mr. Samson,' said the cheerful doctor, becoming a trifle less cheerful. 'You know the score. So do we all. You know why she's coming back here.'

'No, I don't,' I said.

'You're talking in riddles,' Rupert told him, closing the passport and putting it on Urban's desk amid the other clutter.

Dr. Urban looked from one to the other of us, a smile trying to get out of the comers of his tightly closed mouth. 'You English,' he said in grudging admiration. 'You're the best actors in the world. Not only Shakespeare, Bacon and all the way to Pinter. And Noel Coward, Lord Olivier and the Rolling Stones and the rest of them. I love them all, but acting is a talent flowing through the veins of each and every one of you. You don't even realize you are doing it, do you?'

'Acting apart,' said Rupert patiently. 'Why is she in hospital?'

Again the smile came. 'You've come here today and you still pretend you don't know. You come to the best maternity hospital in the sub-district — in the whole of Warsaw perhaps — and you say is the mother-to-be still alive? Really, gentlemen. It is time now to wipe off the greasepaint, I think.'

'Pregnant?' said Rupert.

'That is the whole point of it all. Why do you think that the Kosinskis wanted to become citizens? Why was the father so keen that his wife should be here in the homeland at this crucial time?'

'So that the child will be Polish,' said Rupert.

'We Poles are a sentimental people,' said Dr. Urban proudly. 'He wants a Polish son; yes.'

'And you will control the parents through the child?' said Rupert,. 'Your jurisdiction will enable you to manipulate the parents and have them say and do anything you wish.' Rupert looked at me. He was alarmed as he thought of what it all meant. And how he would explain this bizarre Polish fait accompli to London.

. 'No, no, no,' said Dr. Urban, without putting his heart and soul into the denial. He got to his feet and said, 'This is a fine hospital. Let me show you around. We can do as well as the Germans in maternity care. Our only concern with the Kosinski woman was whether a mother should travel at such a late state of pregnancy. Some can, some can't, it's a matter of stamina . . . of constitution. That's why I took our resident obstetrician with me. I don't want an emergency on the train next week. In any case there will be a doctor and a nurse with her. There is nothing to worry about.' A quick look from one to the other of us. 'But they are Poles. If the worst came to worst, at least I would not be facing a political dimension.'

Rupert was furious, but he kept his anger under tight control. He saw it all as solely a device to render the embassy people powerless. He said: 'You don't have to explain it in even greater detail, Doctor. We see the point of the naturalization procedure.'

'And George Kosinski goes along with all this?' I asked.

'Mr. Kosinski is a deeply religious man. He has always prayed for a child; they both have.'

'And now their prayers have come true?' I said.

He looked at me with narrowed eyes. 'Not quite yet,' he said. 'But they enjoy something for which to light a candle or two.' He buttoned his shirt collar and tightened the knot of his brown tie. 'You'll see.' From behind the door he took his jacket from a hanger and put it on. I should have guessed all along I suppose. Poland was still under de facto martial law, no matter what soothing noises were coming from the government.

Dr. Urban's jacket was khaki and complete with campaign medals and badges of rank. A major in the supply services. Every institution was under the direct control of the army, so why not the finest maternity home in the sub-district? 'We have only a few days to wait,' said Urban, looking at me. 'I would dearly like to get this absurd misunderstanding settled once and for all. So can I have your assurance that when you speak with Mrs. Kosinski, and hear her say that she prefers to be a Polish citizen, you will report in those terms to your masters in London?'

'Tell me, Major Urban,' I said politely. 'Exactly what are the full rights and privileges that come with becoming a Polish citizen?'

'You will have your little jokes, you Englishmen,' he said, and laughed as he strapped on his leather pistol belt.

*

It was only after we were back at Vilnius Station and in the car that Rupert had left there, that Rupert gave vent to his frustration and rage.

'The little bastard. Bezpieca! I could see that from the start.'

'Maybe,' I said.

'I can recognize a secret policeman when I see one.'

'You mean he was a secret policeman wearing a uniform as a disguise?'

'Why are you always so damned argumentative?'

'I was just asking.'

He shuddered. 'When we were in that stinking old ambulance I thought they were going to slit our throats.'

'They wouldn't want to mess up their nice clean blankets,' I said. 'They wanted to make us a little nervous.'

'Well, with me they succeeded,' said Rupert. 'Can you imagine what London is going to say when I tell them how we've been outmaneuvred? It's not even worth your chasing after George Kosinski anymore. You can see how they've twisted him round their finger.'

'Poor George.'

'And the child will be Polish. As two Polish nationals there can be no question of the baby getting a UK passport.'

'No,' I said. It was typical of Rupert and all his clan that every situation was rendered down into its relevant paperwork. These are the sort of bureaucratic pen pushers who think a peace treaty is more important than a peace.

We sat there in the car with neither of us speaking. Vilnius Station was even bleaker now that evening was approaching. The sky was almost black and the sodium lamps on the station were orbs of orange-colored light made fuzzy by the condensation on the car's windows.

'The Poles are not bad people,' said Rupert, as if to himself. I could see that he was trying to think of some way of presenting the bad news he would be sending to London. 'The regime is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea- Between Moscow's tanks and Wall Street.'

'Tanks and banks,' I said. 'It's a predicament.'

'You're a lot of bloody help aren't you?' he complained. 'Yes. No. I suppose so. What the hell's wrong with you?'

'You're preparing a message for tonight?'

'They'll need something more than a message,' he said. 'This development will have them climbing the walls.'

'So why not hang on for a day or so?' I suggested.

'Can't.'

'That wasn't an official meeting. Who was there? You, me and his nibs. If we forget that it happened, Dr. Urban might as well have been talking to himself.'

'Probably tape-recorded.'

'I doubt it. He was too relaxed.'

'I'll have to tell London sooner or later.'

'Later.'

'It's all very well for you to say later. You won't get the rocket when suddenly they hear that Tessa Kosinski is in Warsaw and having the baby.'

'Write a memo to yourself about the meeting. Say I didn't believe a word of it, and neither did you.'