How I Got My Apartment (Part VI)

I waited a little and presently got to the ground work. It went unexpectedly efficiently, and the whole time working in the rain and in the wind, I felt like some grave robbing hyena. 

The suitcases, though they were very heavy, were decidedly small and firmly secured with the help of a groundsheet bound with thick wire. 

Even though they had sat in the ground for ten years, none of them had fallen apart, which definitely would have given me some trouble and which I tried not to think about. It was two ten when I had all the suitcases. 

I returned to the palace, precisely washed myself in the bucket and changed. I filled a large, white, previously prepared envelope with a great amount of diverse, idiotic propaganda material and in large letters I wrote on it: COMRADETTE WANDA – FOR YOUR EYES ONLY – IMPORTANT PROPAGANDA MATERIAL. 

There was no rush and I had everything under control. I smoked two cigarettes and when three approached, already dressed normally I threw out onto the flowerbed my ZMP uniform together with the red ties and trampled them precisely into the wet ground. 

At two to three I heard the whir of an automobile. I went back inside the palace, took the Atlantic watch off my hand and placed it within the papers which I left for comradette Wanda, sealing the envelope afterwards. 

When with haste I ran down the stairs, the automobile was just pulling up. There were three people inside. Without turning off the engine, the driver and the passenger next to him ran out of the car. I showed them the tied up sack in which I hid the suitcases, and they, with trouble because the sack was very heavy, put it in the trunk. 

When I got into the car, I saw that the third guy, who I sat next to in the back seat, was Vinny. 

The car in which we rode was a Chevrolet Fleetmaster, a vehicle ministers used to move around in and which never had the right to be stopped by some ordinary citizen’s militia. 

Vinny knew well what and how to take care of everything. In a little while we were speeding southbound, in the direction of Warsaw, and luckily I already had behind me this week long ZMP-PGR episode. 

Meanwhile Vinny had been preparing himself for his illegal departure from this country. We met a few more times. One of these times we recounted my recent PGR-ZMP action and he asked me if I did not by any chance have any further losses or costs because of it. 

I responded that everything went according to the plan we had prepared, and my only loss in executing this operation was my Atlantic watch, but I did not go into detail. 

The next day Vinny gave me a large nickel Longines with a stopwatch and a beautiful steel bracelet. It definitely originated from one of the three suitcases I dug up, and in the watch rankings it stood at least several levels higher than the Atlantic, which was now with comradette Wanda. 

And the Longines? Thirty three years later it was lost in New York by the biggest love of my life, who I loved so much that I did not say a word about it. It happened in the light of day on West 53rd Street between 5th and 6th Avenue, but this was a completely different and much later chapter of my life.