It was done.
I had just finished my drink and pocketed the sketch, when the door opened with a rush of cold air. Irmgard Köhler’s husband launched himself into the room, snatched me up like I was a pup and ordered his wife to telephone the police.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
The German police wanted nothing to do with me. They filled out a form at the police station because Herr Köhler had lodged a complaint against me. For causing distress to his wife. But Irmgard would not back up his accusations, not even when he switched to kidnap and theft. So the charges were dropped and I was returned to Graufeld Camp. The German police were pleased to be rid of me.
I was instantly summoned to Colonel Whitmore’s office.
Hanna was missing. She should have been standing right beside me in her white tunic. Not that it was white any more. Last time I saw her it looked as though she’d climbed up the inside of a chimney in it. My own skirt and blouse were no better, testament to the number of ditches and mud holes we had scrambled through. Full of rips and scratches. Torn seams where the pressure hose had got to work. When I looked at myself I wasn’t surprised the colonel wanted to send me back.
‘I am obliged to return you into Soviet custody, Mrs Janowska, until they have finished their questioning,’ Colonel Whitmore told me for the tenth time.
He used that word a lot. Obliged. ‘The German police were obliged to hand you over to me.’ As if I were a food parcel. ‘I am obliged to return you to the Soviets for questioning. It’s not that I wish to do so, I want you to understand that.’
I understood. I did. It was his job. If he made an exception for me, he would have to make an exception for everyone. And he was British. The British always stick to the rules. All of a sudden I was aware of silence in the room. Colonel Whitmore had stopped talking. I focused on him and saw for the first time how sad he looked. Sad and tired. He was regarding me expectantly, waiting for a reply.
‘Hanna Pamulska?’ he prompted. ‘You have no idea where she is?’
‘No, sir. She was supposed to wait for me at the edge of the wood where I left her, but she wasn’t anywhere around when the police led me back there.’
‘Unfortunate. If you hear any word from her, I expect you to inform me.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said.
He looked relieved. He thought I would be no trouble.
I stuffed my rage and humiliation back down my throat. I tucked my ice-cold fear and my hot shame out of sight. I offered him a bland inoffensive face.
‘Sir, I have one request to make.’
‘What is it?’
‘When the Russians took me last time, it was all so fast that I had no chance to arrange for the care of my daughter.’
He said nothing. Shuffled some papers.
‘This time, Colonel, I would like time to arrange for someone to look after her while I am gone. And I want to fill out a form to apply for her to be taken into one of the children-only camps. It would be safer for her in one of those.’
His thick eyebrows shot up, startled. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, Colonel. Really.’
‘How long do you need for this?’
‘Two days.’
He frowned. ‘I believe one day would be sufficient.’
‘Two days, sir. So that I can spend time with her before you hand me back to Soviet Intelligence. I may be gone some time in Berlin.’
I stared at him, unblinking. Stared hard. So hard I saw a scarlet flush start to creep up his cheek. We both knew I wouldn’t be coming back.
Alicja was there. Waiting for me outside the Administration office, kicking at the puddles on the ground with impatience. She looked skinnier, thin as a thread. And there was something wilder about the movement of her limbs, more feral, that I hadn’t seen before.
I called her name and she looked up from the muddy puddles. At the sight of me she froze. Her eyes were huge in her face and as grey as the rain, instead of blue. Her mouth opened but no sound came out and it was that odd silence in her, even more than her immobility, that tore at my heart.
I knew the reason for her stillness. She was afraid. Afraid to move in case I vanished. I flew to her and scooped her into my arms, holding her in the circle of my love. I knelt down in the wet dirt and she buried her face in my neck. I rocked her and rocked her the way I did when I snatched her out of the convent and she wouldn’t stop shaking.
‘I prayed for you, Mama,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘I asked God to bring you back to me. And to save the poisoned man.’
That surprised me.
‘And I asked Colonel Whitmore to bring you back,’ she said.
I kissed her damp cheek. Her ear. Her hair. ‘Thank you, sweetheart. I will always come back to you, always. Don’t you know that? But even when I am not at your side, I am in every breath you take. Don’t ever think you aren’t with me. Because you are. In every thought inside my head.’
I felt her small chin start to tremble. I pulled back to take a look at my daughter’s face. My eyes darted over it from feature to feature, checking each one minutely.
‘You need more meat on your bones, Alicja.’ I smiled. She lifted her head to try to match my smile. That was when I saw the livid bruise on her neck. The sight of it brought bile to my throat.
Alicja was asleep. At last she dared to close her eyes. I set two women from the hut to watch over her and I stepped out into the wet night. It was that kind of sharp-edged rain that soaked straight through to your skin and the wind had a mean winter bite to it.
Out of the darkness Davide appeared. He was carrying a ragged umbrella – I had no idea where it came from – and leaping over puddles. He opened his arms wide as he came near and I walked straight into them. After all my wanderings it was like coming home. I pressed my wet cheek to his, my arms clasping him close. We stood like that for a long time under the umbrella. No words. Indifferent to the wind and rain. Only aware of the heat between us as we found each other again.
Then we ran through the camp, arms linked, while the wind tried to rip the spokes from the umbrella. We stopped at the carved oak door in the walled vegetable garden and I took out the big iron key that I had borrowed from Niks. We splashed our way to the Latvian’s small shed and tumbled inside, shaking ourselves like wet dogs. Skin touching. Pulses racing. Never taking our eyes off each other. Wanting to devour. To taste. To grasp. To love.
We stripped off each other’s sodden clothes. Peeling them off piece by piece to find the being underneath. We wrapped ourselves in a threadbare green blanket that Niks liked to huddle in when the wind rattled the window loose in its fixings. Its weave smelled of tobacco and mice, but it became our skin, binding us together.
We didn’t need words. No hows. No whys. No what ifs. We just needed each other. My body ached, but not from its blisters or from its scratches and bruises. It ached with the pain of needing him. In the flickering light of the candle his skin possessed a lustre and when he whispered my name it was in a tone of voice that I’d never heard from him before.
Our lovemaking was tender at first. Lingering kisses and silky caresses that set our skin on fire. Teasing out secret places that shuddered with desire,. But I wanted more. More of him. More of what lay inside him. It became fierce in those final soul-piercing moments when we tore away the last barriers with bare nails. When we became a part of each other.
No yesterdays. No tomorrows. Just here. Just now. In Davide’s arms I could breathe each breath to the full and not worry about the next.
How do you thank someone for saving your child’s life? How do you say, ‘I am grateful to you for not letting my child die,’ without falling to the ground and kissing their feet?
So I kissed Davide’s feet.
He laughed. It was the best sound. And he drew me up to curl beside him, my head nestled on his chest. I could hear each beat of his heart. He ran a hand through my hair, as if to pluck out the thoughts inside.
‘Tell me, Klara,’ he said quietly.
I wrapped a leg possessively around his. I planted a kiss on his collarbone. I breathed. Then I told him all that had happened since I’d left Graufeld Camp, and he uttered no words, but I could hear his heart hammering worse than a drum. I could feel his lungs pumping harder than bellows. When I finished, he lay silent, his fingers knotted in my hair.
‘People were kind to me,’ I said. ‘I am grateful.’
‘Grateful to the cruel bastard who turned a hose on you?’
I swivelled on to my stomach, so that I could look at his face. ‘Tell me what happened here. In Graufeld.’
He was reluctant. It made me nervous. There was something I needed to know. Not just Scholz’s attack on Alicja. Something else. Something that was making Davide sit tight on his words.
Eventually it came out, Davide’s conversation with Scholz. The German’s accusations against me. They made me sick inside. I rolled away from Davide’s side and sat up crosslegged in the cold damp air while the noise of the rain on the metal roof sounded like the hooves of spooked horses. I lifted one of his hands and curled both of mine around it.
‘Did you believe Scholz?’ I asked.
He gave me a slow smile. ‘Should I?’
‘I wouldn’t blame you if you did, Davide. I know how devious he is. He takes part of the truth and twists it into something dark and dangerous to suit his own purpose.’
Davide’s thumb stroked my palm. ‘He is a convincing liar, no doubt of that. But I love you, Klara. Oskar Scholtz and his lies can’t alter that.’
I pressed my hand to his chest, seeking out his heart. ‘You don’t know what that man can do,’ I whispered.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
I hung one pouch around Alicja’s bruised neck. The pressure point where Scholz’s thumb had drilled into her was an angry purple that spread sideways like a piece of seaweed, yellowish black. Each time I looked at it I had to stop myself from screaming.
But I silenced myself by painting images in my head. Of a long thin-bladed knife, a boning knife, the kind my father used when slicing a leg of pork. Sliding neatly between Scholz’s ribs.
Would you blame me?
I hung the other pouch around my own neck. They contained our passports. It meant we were ready. I had told Rafal, Izak and Alzbeta that as soon as I had set us up in an address in England I would rush back and claim them. But I hated the idea of leaving them.
‘You remember everything?’ I whispered in the dark of early morning.
‘Yes, Mama. Don’t fuss.’
‘It will be a long, long day for you.’
‘I know. Don’t worry so much.’
‘You’ll be safe there. As long as you stay hidden.’ I cradled her precious face between my hands, so bright and eager to start on her new life. ‘Promise me you’ll stay hidden, Alicja.’ I tightened my hold on the delicate bones.
‘I promise.’
I had no choice. I had to believe her.
‘Let’s go.’
She gave me an odd little smile. ‘What about Davide?’
‘He’ll come. When we are settled in England.’ But a tremor hit my hands and I released her.
‘Have you asked him?’
‘Not yet.’
She clasped her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek. ‘Be careful, Mama.’
‘Don’t fuss,’ I smiled in the darkness, aware of her warm breath on my ear. ‘It will be easy.’
But she didn’t unclasp her young arms.
I risked the curfew. I had to get Alicja into the culvert before it was light. We waited just inside the door of our hut and I held her hand. It seemed startlingly slight, as if it had shrunk while I was away. I could feel sweat on my palm but didn’t know whether it was hers or mine.
As soon as the nightshift guard was safely past, we slid outside into the black shadows and scuttled along the street. I could sense my daughter’s excitement. She was chasing along, so eager to play her part that it frightened me. She might forget to listen to my dull voice of reason in her head. She might go skipping straight into the arms of trouble.
We ducked down the side of the laundry and it made me wonder yet again. Where the hell are you, Hanna?
I had a blanket under my arm and a stolen apple in my hand. This will be our last day here, my daughter. Trust me.
I made a big show of scouring the camp. Calling my daughter’s name. The children did too. They darted from hut to hut, adding their light cries to mine.
‘Alicja! Alicja! Alicja!’
I could hear my voice rising, growing ever more frantic. Other mothers joined the search and we surged as a posse down to the rough end of camp, right into the heartland of the men’s huts. The odd thing was that the men acted guilty. They didn’t meet our eyes, turning their backs or shouting abuse. As if our suspicion stained their skin with the mark of Cain.
Niks lumbered up to help. The big bearded Latvian barged into huts, upturned tables, demanding to know who was hiding my daughter.
‘Where is she? Which one of you fiends from hell has taken Alicja? I’ll break your fucking necks if you’ve touched a hair of her head. You hear me?’ he bellowed.
I thanked him from the bottom of my guilty heart. I hadn’t meant to hurt him.
It was Niks who charged snorting and stamping into Hut W. I had been avoiding it. I walked straight past it. I wouldn’t lay my eyes even on the doorway in case Scholz was standing there, his broken spectacles watching me, assessing me, raking through my lies.
‘Klara!’
I spun round. Scholz was right behind me. Anger burned in his eyes, turning them as flat and as dark as slate.
‘What have you done with her?’ he hissed.
His spittle touched my lips and it took all the willpower I possessed to stop myself sinking my claws in him. This man tried to kill my child. If I attacked him, if I ripped his tongue from his head, I would be locked away. What good would I be to Alicja then?
‘Where are you hiding her, you lying bitch? What are you up to?’
But he didn’t raise his voice. His tone was quiet. He kept it close and intimate. Between the two of us. And because my hand refused to listen to me, it hauled right back and smacked him hard across the face.
‘You think your daughter has somehow left the camp?’
‘Yes, Colonel, I do.’
‘How on earth could she get out?’
‘I don’t know, sir, but it seems she has. Your men have searched for her.’
Four of the British soldiers had been through the camp with a fine toothcomb, fast and efficient. When they searched the laundry, I didn’t breathe. Rafal had stood in the drying yard bouncing a ball against a wall and whistling softly. Not once did he look in the direction of the drain to the culvert.
‘I need to go outside to look for Alicja,’ I said with a tremble in my voice.
‘She could be anywhere.’ He waved a hand at the window. ‘Germany is a big country.’
‘She hated being cooped up in here. She has said time and time again that she wants to go to those wooded hills to the south of us.’
‘The Deister hills?’
‘Yes, sir. I can only suppose that’s where she is heading.’
‘That’s a big supposition, Mrs Janowkska.’
‘It’s all I’ve got to go on.’ My voice broke. I dabbed at my eyes with a handkerchief and felt a darkness tuck around me.
The colonel ventured out from behind his desk and patted my shoulder kindly. ‘I have a daughter myself, you know. I wouldn’t want her to be out there alone.’
I raised tearful eyes to his. ‘Alicja is all I have in the world.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
When you want something so badly.
When you’ve planned and worked so long.
When you feel it just at your fingertips.
Then, it is hard to sit still. To talk about the weather and cricket. But the sandy-haired soldier sitting beside me in the truck was English and he loved his national pastime. He was young a
nd proud to show off his single lance-corporal stripe. Excited at the prospect of going home next month. I asked him about England and he told me he lived in a seaside town called Torquay where he and his father played cricket on a manor house pitch at Cockington.
‘Do they have thatched cottages there?’
‘Yes, lots of them.’
‘And roses?’
He laughed, wrinkling his freckles. ‘Everywhere in England has roses. You’d love it there.’
I looked out the side window of the truck as though searching for my daughter. I didn’t want him to see my face.
‘No! What are you doing? Take it off. Stop!’
‘Sorry, love. Colonel Whitmore’s orders.’
‘But I’m not a prisoner. I’ve done nothing wrong.’
I stared in horror at the metal handcuff on my wrist. I shook it hard. Felt it bite. The other end was fixed to the soldier’s own wrist. He had snapped them on the moment I’d jumped down from the truck when it parked under the spread of an oak.
‘No!’ I said again.
‘The colonel thinks you might run. With the Russkies after you and everything.’
Whitmore had out-thought me. He’d seen what was coming. So he’d whipped my dreams out from under my feet. My hand stayed still, refusing to move, but the soldier gave it a tweak.
‘Come on, love. Let’s get going. We’ve got a lot of woodland to search if we’re going to find your daughter.’
‘Alicja!’ I screamed. ‘Alicja!’
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Graufeld Camp
ALICJA
Alicja lay in the culvert pipe. She heard them search. She heard them go. She did what she had promised, she waited. The world was reduced to a circle of corrugated white light at the end of the pipe and it seemed to beckon her.
She made her eyes close to block it out and rested her head on her forearm. It felt like living inside a grey tin can. The air claustrophobic and sour. It was hard on her elbows and hip bones, and it made the scars on her back ache as she lay on her front in the mud. Last night’s rain had washed soil and debris down the drain and the stink was how she imagined a tomb to be. She didn’t want to die here. Please, God, don’t let me die in here.
The Survivors Page 26
