by Emma Fraser
This time there was no Magdalena or her mother rushing to greet her. Instead, a large, unfamiliar car was parked in the driveway.
Filled with dread, Irena ran up the steps and banged on the door. It was opened by a corpulent, moustached German police officer.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m looking for Madam Ĺaski and her daughter.’
‘They’re no longer here.’ The man made to close the door in her face but Irena jammed in a foot to stop him.
‘What do you mean they are no longer here? This is their home. They wouldn’t just give it up.’
He shrugged. ‘I have no idea where they are, nor do I care. This house is no longer theirs. Houses such as these aren’t needed by Jews.’
She bit down on the retort that rose to her lips. It was too dangerous to antagonise anyone allied to the Reich.
This time he did close the door in her face. Slowly Irena turned away. Perhaps Magdalena and her mother had taken her advice and gone into hiding, or, even better, found some way to leave Poland altogether. In that case why hadn’t they let her know? Maybe they’d had to go quickly and there hadn’t been time.
But the feeling of dread wouldn’t go away.
Chapter 10
The first days of November brought snow and bitter cold. Despite the posters on every wall, the swastikas flying from most buildings and the presence of soldiers on every street, everyday life settled into a rhythm: people continued to go to work, still shopped in the open-air markets and gathered in the cafes and bars. Irena went to the hospital every day to do what she could. The little girl she’d helped had been discharged to the care of her aunt who’d come from one of the outlying villages in search of her family when they didn’t arrive as planned. She had been distraught to discover that her brother, sister-in-law and nephew were dead, but finding little Maria alive seemed to give her the strength to put her own grief aside.
So many people had been displaced it was difficult to know who was where.
Since the occupation the number of casualties with traumatic injuries had slowed to a trickle, but admissions, particularly of children and old people suffering the effects of cold and malnutrition, had increased sharply. The nurses and doctors worked tirelessly, teaching the medical students while they toiled alongside them. However, it was a different kind of medicine and a different type of teaching than before the war. The medication they once had ready access to no longer existed, equipment had been damaged and either was in short supply or kept breaking down and so they often had to compromise and innovate when it came to treating the patients. Although Irena had learned more in the last few weeks than she had during the whole of her training, she and her fellow students looked forward to the university reopening in the near future. The Germans were repairing the railway tracks and telephone lines and although neither worked as well as they had before the invasion, it was possible to use the trains and, sporadically, make a phone call.
However, there was still no word from her father and Irena was becoming frantic. Every day she went to a cafe to use their phone to call him at their Krakow apartment, but either it didn’t ring or it wasn’t answered.
She was cleaning the septic wound of a patient when Dr Czatoryski, one of the senior doctors who knew her father well, asked her to come to his office.
The way he looked at her chilled her.
Dr Czatoryski lit a cigarette and waited until she was seated before he spoke. ‘I have news of your father. It’s not good.’
Irena’s heart thumped sickeningly. ‘Is he hurt?’
‘He’s alive. At least he was yesterday.’
Only when her breath came out in a long, shuddering sigh, did she realise she’d been holding it.
‘What’s happened?’
‘The professors of the Jagiellonian University were called to a meeting allegedly to discuss the reopening of the university.’ He pushed a glass of water towards her and she took a sip, glad of something to moisten her dry mouth.
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you,’ Dr Czatoryski continued, ‘but the Germans arrested all of them, including your father. They assaulted the rector. They even shot a student who tried to protest.’
Irena gripped the arms of her chair as a wave of dizziness made her head spin. ‘Why? What did they do wrong?’
He put his thumb and forefinger to his mouth and removed a flake of tobacco. ‘Nothing! What does anyone need to do these days?’ He leaned towards her. ‘They claim the professors had attempted to reopen the university without obtaining permission. But that’s only an excuse. We suspect the Nazis want to remove the Polish intelligentsia, and keeping universities and schools closed is only the first step. We have good information they have lists of professors, lawyers and doctors and that they plan to arrest them all.’
Irena shivered and threaded her fingers together to stop them shaking. It was hard to believe that the Germans would keep a bunch of old men prisoner just because they lectured at a university. But then only a few weeks ago she would never have believed anything she’d witnessed since the start of the war. ‘Where did they take them?’
‘They’ve imprisoned them in an old Polish military barracks in Krakow. We must hope that they’ll release them soon.’
‘And if they don’t?’
The doctor ground out his cigarette in the ashtray. ‘I don’t know.’
‘We have to do something. My father’s not strong.’
‘We will try to protest. It’s all we can do.’ He rubbed his neck with the back of his hand and stood. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as we find out the Germans’ intentions as far as your father and the other professors are concerned.’
‘I must go there. I must try to see him.’
He sighed. ‘I would advise against it. I doubt they’ll let you past the front gate. And perhaps it’s best if you don’t draw attention to yourself. They shot one of the students, remember?’
Still, she couldn’t stay here and do nothing. Whatever Dr Czatoryski said, she wasn’t going to stay in Warsaw, not when her father was in prison in Krakow. She had to, at the very least, make an attempt to see him.
It took several days for Irena to secure a train ticket to Krakow. The railway station, one of the few buildings undamaged during the fighting, was always crowded and chaotic.
The unheated carriage was freezing and Irena was glad of the body heat from her fellow travellers – a woman with her two children, an older man travelling with his wife and two elderly women, their thin faces pinched with cold. Apart from a quick nod to each other, no one maintained eye contact or spoke. These days it was impossible to know who to trust.
They were almost at Krakow when the train lurched to a halt. It wasn’t unusual; the trains often stopped at random, sometimes to let soldiers on to check identity papers, sometimes because the track was damaged, and sometimes for no obvious reason. People had become accustomed to long delays and random searches, or at least resigned to them. It didn’t mean they’d lost their fear, however; the searches often resulted in summary executions and arrests.
Irena wiped the condensation and ice from the inside of her window. Seven men, their bodies slowly revolving in the wind, their faces mottled black and blue, were swinging from gallows on the other side of the railway line. Sour-tasting bile rushed into her throat and she covered her mouth with her hand. Hearing an anguished cry behind her, she reached for the blind and snapped it closed, blocking out the sickening sight.
The old woman sobbed into her handkerchief, while the mother, her children pressed into her side, rocked back and forth. The older couple looked away, the man lifting his paper and hiding behind it.
The train jerked and continued on its way.
It took another two hours to reach Krakow, a journey that should have taken less than half the time, and all the while Irena’s thoughts never strayed far from the dead men. Would that be Tata’s fate?
She left the train and hurried towards the prison in Montelupich Street. Unlike War
saw, Krakow was relatively undamaged, the Germans having decided to make it their base from which to control Poland. It was more like a German city now with its military bands marching along the street and the well-dressed and well-fed wives of the German officers.
But despite pleading and an eight-hour wait at the prison gates, they refused to let her see her father.
She had no choice but to return to Warsaw – and wait.
Chapter 11
Edinburgh, 1989
‘How exciting!’ Gilly said as she opened a bottle of wine. She held up a glass and raised an eyebrow, but Sarah shook her head. She still had copy-edits to work on tonight.
She’d run out of time to go shopping so had been forced to conjure up a pasta dish from some past-its-best mince, and despite her best efforts, it didn’t look quite right. ‘I’m afraid it’s not very appetising,’ she apologised. ‘Let’s hope it tastes better than it looks.’
Gilly added a liberal dose of red wine to the pan. ‘Never found anything that couldn’t be improved with a slug of alcohol.’ She tasted it. ‘Yummy. But come on, surely you must know Lord Glendale? Fancy you being connected to aristocracy.’
While Sarah had been making supper she’d filled her friend in on the day’s events.
‘I doubt very much that I am connected to him, although my grandparents might have known him.’
It was another possibility she’d thought of and an increasingly likely one. From the little her mother had told her about her grandparents they’d been wealthy at one time. ‘That could explain why he had a photograph of my mother in his possession. Perhaps he just wanted to return it to its rightful owner.’
‘Returning a photo is one thing, making your mother a legatee is quite another. Doesn’t he have family?’
‘I thought about that too so I looked him up in Debrett’s at the office.’
‘Debrett’s?’
‘It’s the Who’s Who of aristocracy. It lists all sorts of information about British aristocrats: antecedents, living and deceased relatives, schools, universities… all sorts of stuff. Anyway, I found him easily enough. He was the only son of the third Earl and Countess of Glendale, Simon and Isabel Maxwell, so until he inherited the title he would have been Lord Richard Maxwell. He was born in nineteen fifteen, educated at Fettes in Edinburgh, studied law at Cambridge and joined the RAF in nineteen thirty-nine. I’m pretty sure it’s him in the photo.’
‘Or a friend of his?’
‘Possibly – but I’m going to go with my instinct that it’s him.’
‘What else did it say?’
‘He never married and there are no children listed. His parents are both dead as are two uncles – one in the First World War, and the other, the original heir to the title, in nineteen twelve. It doesn’t give a cause of death but he was pretty young. There’s also an aunt listed – a Lady Dorothea – who was pretty impressive. She served in both wars and was called to the bar in nineteen twenty-four – one of the first women to do so. She retired in nineteen fifty-five. Although there’s no date of death next to her name, it’s unlikely she’s still alive. She probably died after the edition I looked at was published.’
Gilly set two plates on the table and held out her hand. ‘Can I see the photo?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘Mum wouldn’t let me have it back.’
‘She knew him, then?’
‘She claims not. But she recognised the woman as Magdalena. I wish I did have the photo to show you. She was stunning. He was bloody gorgeous too.’
‘Wonder why he never married, then? Might have been gay, of course. They kept that sort of thing pretty quiet in those days.’
‘Trust me, he wasn’t gay. He had a painting and a couple of photos of Magdalena in his bedroom. If you’d seen them you would know he had to have been besotted with her. And he had a few of Mum’s paintings.’ She explained about the seascapes on his drawing-room wall.
‘How intriguing! Maybe being single he had some sort of godparent role?’
‘Perhaps, but in that case why has he never been part of her life until now?’ She tipped the pasta into a bowl before setting it in the centre of the table. She grinned. ‘God, this takes me back.’
‘Me too.’
They’d met the first day Sarah moved into Halls. She’d been sitting on her bed, feeling a little sorry for herself, when a red-head, with the curliest hair she’d ever seen, burst through her door. ‘Thank God,’ she’d said. ‘I’ve been going crazy waiting for someone to show up.’
From that moment on she’d been dragged along in Gilly’s wake, her new friend insisting they attend virtually every event in Freshers’ week and signing them up for every male-dominated society and club. After first year, they’d shared a series of crummy flats until they’d graduated, after which they’d gone their separate ways – Gilly moving in with Tim, and Sarah to London. But they’d always kept in touch and, since Sarah had moved back to Scotland, they saw each other at least once a month. Except for Gilly’s appearance – the wild red curls had been cut into a Princess Di style and coloured blond – her friend hadn’t changed. She was still a live wire, still the same restless, risk-taking Gilly. Sarah wished she could be more like her.
‘So what next?’ Gilly asked, winding a strand of spaghetti around her fork.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘What does your dad say?’
Sarah pushed her plate away. She didn’t seem to have much of an appetite these days. ‘I haven’t spoken to him yet.’
Gilly raised an eyebrow. ‘But you’re going to, right? He might have all the answers – or some of them.’
Sarah shifted uneasily in her chair. ‘I plan to phone him later.’
‘I’m amazed you didn’t call him straight away. I know you two don’t get on but, Christ, Sarah, if anyone can clear up this mystery…’
Not getting on was one way of putting it. Since his marriage to the woman he’d left her mother for and their subsequent move to South Africa, she and Dad had virtually lost touch, although, of course, she’d phoned him to tell him about Mum’s stroke. Foolishly, she’d allowed herself to believe that, just this once, he’d remember he had another daughter apart from the one he had with his second wife, but if she’d expected him to jump on the next plane to come and see them, she’d been disappointed.
‘Yes, well. As I said, I’ll call him later. In the meantime, Gilly, Lord Glendale is the obvious link. Seeing as he can’t tell me anything, I wondered if one of the surviving family members might know something. Lady Dorothea, his aunt, has a son listed in Debrett’s and apparently he still lives in London so I phoned Directory Enquiries for the number. Unfortunately, it’s unlisted.’ Sarah picked up their plates and put them in the sink.
‘Why don’t you just go and see him? Isn’t it time you saw Matthew anyway?’ Gilly said.
Sarah ignored the last comment. She didn’t want to talk about Matthew.
‘I can’t just turn up at a stranger’s door. What if they’re furious about the will? What if there was a falling-out? I’d hardly be welcome on their doorstep.’
Gilly laughed. ‘Oh, Sarah, don’t go all Chicken Licken on me.’
Sarah bristled. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you stopped calling me that?’ Whenever Gilly had lost patience with Sarah’s reluctance to go on one of her mad-cap escapades – and throughout their time at university there had been several – she’d taunted her with Chicken Licken who’d been so terrified that the sky would fall on his head, he’d persuaded Ducky Lucky and Henny Penny to be scared too. Then they’d run into sly Foxy Loxy and he’d convinced them to come to his den where they’d be safe. Needless to say, Chicken Licken, Henny Penny, and Ducky Lucky never made it out again. Which, Sarah had told Gilly, proved that her way of thinking was the right one.
Admittedly, in this case, Gilly had a point. What was the worst that could happen? They could turn her away, or refuse to speak to her – so at the most she’d be embarrassed.
�
�I could go, I suppose. There’s only one problem, though: I don’t like to leave Mum.’
Gilly raised an eyebrow. ‘You could fly down to London in the morning and be back the same evening. Or better still, stay the night with Matthew. I’ll pop in to see your mum and tell her you’ll be in as soon as you return.’
It was about time she visited Matthew. Since her mother had become ill they’d seen little of each other. And bugger Gilly and her ‘Chicken Licken’; she’d do whatever it took to find out who the Glendales were.
‘Okay, then. If Dad can’t clear up the mystery, I’ll try to get a flight to London tomorrow. If I do, I’d appreciate it if you could look in on Mum while I’m gone – you’re a sweetie for offering. But I should be the one to tell her I’ll be away. She’ll fret otherwise.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be meeting Tim in the pub, like twenty minutes ago?’
