22 Britannia Road Part 14

Poland

Silvana

Gregor was a handsome man who knew it. Long-limbed and lean, he wore a tailored tweed suit under a long trench coat and a mustard-coloured scarf tied tightly round his long neck. He said he was a doctor. He'd worked in Russia, living in backwood villages in the Urals, miles from any towns. He was a znakhar znakhar, a pract.i.tioner of folk medicine. He had a small group of people with him now: three women and a man. The first day Silvana joined them, Gregor instructed her to look out for anthills. The old man with him suffered from arthritis.

'I need to find the ants that build their hills up out of the ground. If you find them we have to gather the nests whole. The secretion the ants use in nest-building is excellent as a cure for crippling diseases.'

'He knows what he's talking about,' said one of the women to Silvana. 'He saved my baby.' She stroked her stomach. 'It's early days. I'm just eight weeks, but I'm as sick as a dog already. I come from a village fifty or so miles north of here. I met Gregor a few weeks ago. I was bleeding and he gave me medicine that stopped it. Now look at me. I'm fine. He's an amazing man.'

Her name was Elsa. She had a round, freckled face framed by a thick bob of dark, s.h.i.+ny hair. Her eyes were large and long-lashed and her lips plump and given to pouting. She followed Gregor everywhere. When she was too tired to move from the camp she sat and watched for him.

There was an old couple. He was fond of complaining of the cold, rubbing his bald head and making jokes about needing a haircut. She was wide-hipped, loose-skinned, her hair plaited and piled on top of her head like grey sausages. She took charge of cooking whatever Gregor brought them. The rest of the time she fussed over her ailing husband.

The last was a dark-haired woman called Lottie. Silvana called her the pianist. She wore her hair in a tight bun and had elegant hands which she stared at for long periods at a time.

Gregor showed Silvana how to use a knife to skin animals and how to set traps, and she was surprised how quickly she learned to survive in the trees.

'Here,' he said, handing her a dead rabbit the first time they went hunting. 'Don't be afraid. Take one of my knives and I'll show you what to do.'

They were deep in the forest, among bracken and th.o.r.n.y brambles.

Silvana nodded. She had already skinned rabbits with Hanka when they overwintered at the farm. She would show this man she knew just what to do. She took the knife he offered her, a short-handled, stubby hunting knife. Aurek crouched beside her.

Gregor smiled at her, as if she was his favourite student.

'Start at the hind legs. We want to keep the pelt whole. You'll be pleased with rabbit skin gloves come the cold weather. You make a cut across to the thigh. Be bold with the knife. Don't be scared, it's quite...'

Silvana took the knife and cut swiftly. Minutes later, she held up a b.l.o.o.d.y rabbit skin. 'Like this?'

Gregor laughed. 'So what have we here? A peasant? And I thought you said you came from Warsaw? You're no city girl. But you're not quite a peasant either. What are you doing alone in the forest with your dark-eyed gypsy child?'

She looked him straight in the eyes, hoping he would look away. He didn't.

'My husband is a Polish soldier. While he is away, I am trying to keep our son safe.' She drew a protective arm around Aurek. 'The forest is a good place for hiding him. After the war my husband will come and find us and we will live in Warsaw again.'

'Hmm. That's your story. I think you're a forest sprite, perhaps. A lovely maiden who walked through the trees. Gathering herbs, plucking roots. The moon she stole, the sun she ate.'

He picked up the skinned rabbit and shook it free of the flies that were beginning to gather. 'That's a Russian incantation. It scares away witches. But you don't look scared, so maybe you are who you say you are. Whoever you are, it's good to have somebody who can handle a knife. Come on, we can see if our other traps have caught anything. You might get those rabbit fur gloves if you're lucky.'

Sometimes, she woke to find Gregor beside her.

'Are you sleeping? If you're cold I can lie beside you.'

'Please go away.'

'Come on, let me warm you.'

'Go away.'

'It's your loss,' he whispered as he got up. 'Not mine.'

Late at night, when the sounds of sleeping people were louder than the noise of the forest, Silvana heard him with first Elsa and then Lottie, his feet cracking twigs as he crept from one woman to the other.

Over the summer months, he took Silvana hunting with him, saying she was quicker and more cunning than the other women. She liked those days, the two of them with Aurek, moving quietly through the trees. They found a wicker basket in a ditch and propped it up with a stick, a long line of string attached to it. They caught squirrels, weasels, even a baby wild boar once. Gregor s.n.a.t.c.hed the hairy, squealing little creature into his arms. Silvana grabbed Aurek and they ran as fast as they could, afraid that the mother would be somewhere nearby and angry.

One day in late summer, Gregor took them looking for mushrooms and they discovered a deer, eyes clouded with death, head stretched out as if it had fallen running. Gregor bent over it.

'It's been shot. Help me lift it. Whoever shot it will be coming to look for it. We've got to get it away from here. This will feed us all.'

Silvana grabbed the forelegs and helped Gregor lift it onto his shoulders. She walked beside him, carrying Aurek. The boy was light and he clung to her with a strong grip, so she could have her hands free to help steady Gregor's burden.

He stopped in a clearing and dropped the carca.s.s onto the ground.

'I can't carry it any further. It's too heavy. We have to cut it up here.'

Silvana set Aurek onto his feet.

'Here?'

He pulled two knives from his coat and handed one to her. Then he bent over the body and slit open the deer's belly. Its guts spilled, a rush of silken crimsons and blues, and the body seemed to sigh, as if all its air was suddenly lost.

'We'll throw the innards away,' Gregor was saying, as he stuck his hands into the b.l.o.o.d.y body. 'And we have to bury the meat now. If we leave it in the open, flies will lay eggs in it. We can't eat maggoty meat, no matter how hungry we are. Once it's covered up it will keep. We have to make sure the flies don't get to it, that's all.'

Silvana turned away, her stomach contracting at the smell rising off the flesh. Gregor glanced up at her.

'Can you do this?'

She nodded. This was no time for weakness. They needed meat. Aurek needed to eat.

'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, of course I can.'

She knelt and he told her what to cut, how to dissect the body. The guts were hot and she could feel her own heart pulsing inside her, quickening as she hauled the innards away and dug a shallow grave for them.

'Have you ever seen a wounded man?' Gregor asked. 'Someone bleeding badly?'

'No. Why do you ask?'

'There are men in these forests. Men who are fighting the Germans. They need people like you. You could join them. You're tough enough to fight with them. I could take you to their camp. You could learn how to use a gun. And if you didn't want to fight, they still need nurses. Women who don't flinch at the sight of blood. You could do it.'

Silvana was cleaning the cavities of the deer with gra.s.s. She stopped for a moment, wiped her sleeve across her cheek, and looked at Aurek chasing b.u.t.terflies, his face and clothes daubed with deer blood.

'I have my son to look after. I'll do what I have to for him. I'm not capable of more than that.'

Gregor wiped his knife clean on the ground. 'Who knows what we're capable of in wartime. Come on. We'd better dig a hole quickly. We need to bury most of this.'

One moonlit night at the end of the summer, when everything was bathed in blue and silver light, Silvana saw Gregor lie down with the old woman. She oozed flesh from beneath his large framed body, and Silvana was sure she could hear the old woman's tired bones creaking as Gregor moved slowly on top of her, back and forth like a rolling pin pressing pastry. Beside them, pretending to be asleep, her husband curled up like a baby and sucked his thumb in an impotent sulk.

Silvana closed her eyes, unsettled by the desire that stirred within her.

Ja.n.u.sz

Ja.n.u.sz wanted to stay. To try and make sense of what had happened. Ambrose said there was nothing they could do. Franek would be buried in the village. Ambrose would write to the family and tell them the boy had died in a hunting accident.

Bruno grew angry and insisted he write the letter himself. The family would not receive a letter from a stranger. They would be told that Franek had been a war hero. There was no need to say that Franek had been carrying a loaded gun and had shot himself.

Ja.n.u.sz watched him sitting in the kitchen composing the letter, throwing away attempt after attempt until he had it right.

A sledge arrived in the early hours of the morning loaded with goat skins, and they said goodbye to Ambrose in the dark.

'Send my letter to Franek's family,' said Bruno as they left. 'Promise me you'll send it today.'

It was a long, sorrowful journey, weaving through small villages, along roads lined with huge s...o...b..nks, tunnels of white which turned the air blue and the trees black. Neither Ja.n.u.sz nor Bruno spoke. The smell of the skins they sat upon permeated everything, a greasy stink of goats that turned Ja.n.u.sz's stomach.

They arrived at a school, where they were given gla.s.ses of vodka mixed with duck fat.

'For strength,' somebody said, handing Ja.n.u.sz a gla.s.s of the cloudy infusion. 'It's a good medicine after what you've been through.'

He drank it straight down and asked for another. And then another.

That same day, two girls accompanied Ja.n.u.sz and Bruno to the train station, kissing them goodbye as though they were their girlfriends.

'Remember,' said the girl standing with Ja.n.u.sz, 'you must sit in another carriage to your friend. You must travel alone. Two men together will be stopped by the police.'

'Goodbye,' said Ja.n.u.sz. His head spun with the effect of too much vodka. A wind swept along the station platform, snow spiralling and circling within it, and Ja.n.u.sz tried to put himself between the icy blast and the girl, sheltering her from the worst of the cold.

She had brown hair, short and curly under her woollen hat. Her eyes were slanted and small and her eyebrows heavy. The cold nipped her nose red. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. 'Make a good show,' she whispered. 'You must look like a local. Pretend you are saying goodbye to your sweetheart.'

'I'll miss you,' he said obligingly, and thought that in fact he would miss her.

'I love you,' he whispered, his words misting into clouds in the frozen air. And it seemed believable. He pulled her into his arms. Loving a stranger might be the easiest thing in the world to do. He was filled with a force of wanting that came from somewhere other than the heart and was clear and uncomplicated as a result. He kissed the girl, pulling off his gloves, risking the cold, unb.u.t.toning her coat, trying to push a way past her layers of clothing. He wanted only to take this stranger and go back to the school and undress her. She pulled away from him, pressing her hand against his chest.

'You're drunk.'

'What's your name?'

'It's best you don't know.'

'Please?'

'You don't really need to know.'

'I do. I want to see you again. After the war.'

The girl shook her head.

'My name is Roza.'

'Roza. When the war is over, I'll come back.'

She kissed him gently on the lips. 'You think you're the only one who has told me this? It's what every soldier says. Romantic fools every one of you. Go. Don't forget to wave at me from the train. Make it look good.'

Ja.n.u.sz got on the train and tried to wave at her but the snow was falling too thickly and he couldn't see her. He studied his hands in his lap and felt foolish for letting his emotions rise up as they had done. He wondered if Bruno had seen him, pus.h.i.+ng his way into the girl's clothes. He thought of Silvana and knew that he would never have felt this way about another girl if he could have stayed close to her. It was loneliness driving him mad.

At some point, the police must have boarded the train. Afterwards, when Bruno told the story of their escape, there were always police, but Ja.n.u.sz could never remember them. He'd been told to keep his head down and not make eye contact with anyone.

Memories of home carried him forwards as the train rattled and lurched: his mother playing the piano; his father coming home from work, talking of politics and local government. He remembered the apple orchards behind Silvana's parents' house where he had waited for her when they were courting. He thought again of the old woman and the mistake he had made, thinking her just a girl. The blood on her feet. Her white hair. He thought of Franek and wanted to say how it felt to see the boy lying helpless on the ice. But there was no one to confess to. He leaned against the window and watched the day turn into night. When the train stopped early the next morning, Bruno walked past and Ja.n.u.sz got up and followed him.

Strangers met them on the platform. They were pa.s.sed among these people. They crossed a frozen river in silence and took another train. Ja.n.u.sz realized Roza had been right. It had been foolish to suggest he would ever see her again. And Silvana and his son? Bruno told him to forget them. He would probably never see them again either.

Ipswich

In September, Aurek starts back at school. Now he has Peter to accompany him into his cla.s.sroom he doesn't make a fuss, and Silvana experiences a sense of dismay as he lets go of her hand and walks away. It's a strange feeling, no longer being governed by the need to stay together. The boy doesn't need her like he used to. It hurts to see him walk away so easily.

Peter, who, Silvana learns from Tony, stays with his grandparents during the week, joins Silvana and Aurek in the park on their way to school every morning. His grandmother walks him to the edge of the park. She is a thin, grey-haired woman in a tweed skirt and high-necked blouse. Narrow as a knife blade, sideways on she almost disappears. When she takes the boy in her arms, though, her thin face glows. She swells, becoming solid, warm and startling, her needs as obvious as a baby's. The old woman kisses Peter's plump cheeks fiercely, as if she is afraid she might never see him again.

Silvana knows that the old lady's hands contain the fear of loss in them. She has lost a daughter. No wonder she clings to the boy. And no wonder Peter shrinks from her touch. He must feel the weight of his mother's death every time his grandmother's bony hands fold around his face.

Silvana would like to talk to her, tell her she understands, but the old woman always ignores her. She turns her head and sets her body metal-thin once again. The woman only has eyes for her grandson.

On Friday afternoons, Tony collects Peter at the school gates to take him home for the weekend. Just the sight of the man standing, waiting for his son, makes Silvana's heart race. It frightens her how she hopes to see him, and she often tries to hide among the other mothers collecting their children. He always finds her though, his hand lifted high in greeting, as if he has seen her in the middle of a much larger crowd than there really is, and has to attract her attention with an extravagant gesture.

They walk through the park with the two boys racing ahead. Talking to Tony is so easy. With him she can leave her past behind. She believes he understands her. Every time Silvana searches for a word, he has it already, finis.h.i.+ng the sentence for her.

It used to be like that with Ja.n.u.sz when they were young. They could look at each other and know what the other was thinking. Even their dreams overlapped sometimes. These days, there is a cool politeness between them both.

'I miss certain foods,' she says in response to Tony's question about her homeland. He often asks questions about Poland, and she is happy to answer as long as he doesn't touch on the war. When he tries to ask her about the years she spent in the forest, she changes the subject, or diverts his attention, pointing out a squirrel scampering along the path, or finds her coat sleeves need straightening, a b.u.t.ton needs b.u.t.toning, her handbag clasp checking.

'Pierogi,' she says. 'I miss them. Dough filled with cabbage and cheese, or mushrooms and onions. Anything you like. We always ate them with sour cream. You can have sweet ones too. Honey and apple and nuts. When I think of pierogi, I feel...'

'Nostalgic?'

'Tesknota. Yes. Nostalgic. That's why I don't think of these things very often.'