When We Fall

by Carolyn Kirby

  ‘I meant how can I leave him?’

  Stefan sits up and takes hold of her shoulders. ‘But think, Ewa. Think about Sunday morning. We could be in London by then, a newly married couple, looking for an apartment. A new life. We’d be together and safe. Your life would be normal.’

  Her gut has contracted as if she is about to throw up. He is serious. Maybe this is what he has had planned all along.

  ‘Don’t even put thoughts like that into my head. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Just excuse yourself before the end of the Gauleiter’s dinner. Look ill or something, and slip into the back alley. I’ll be waiting there with Tomasz in the truck. We will pick up the suitcase and the Neptun receiver from the factory then drive here.’

  Ewa pulls up her legs and puts her arms around them, resting her head on her knees. There is a look in Stefan’s eye that she has not seen before and does not like.

  ‘What is it you really want to pick up tomorrow night – me or the suitcase?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘And if you had to choose?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You will have to, Stefan, because neither me nor the suitcase will be going anywhere unless my father comes with us.’

  Stefan stands up and runs both hands through his hair. ‘There’s a risk that the Dakota landing might go wrong. Or not happen at all.’

  ‘I know that. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘In fact, it’s more likely to go wrong than right.’ He thrusts his hands into his trouser pockets and turns away. ‘That’s why you must keep this with you at all times.’

  He pulls one hand from his pocket. There is something red on the flat of his palm; a foil covered sweet with familiar dull red wrapping and E Wedel in curling gold letters. But Ewa’s chest is thudding because she knows what is inside the chocolate.

  She shakes her head. ‘Haller gave me one of those before the last big action, but I flushed it down the officers’ toilet. I could never bring myself to take it.’

  Stefan kneels down beside Ewa and pushes the wrapped, deadly chocolate into her skirt pocket. ‘They won’t just beat you, you know, or burn you or try to drown you. That’s what they’d do to a man.’

  ‘What about you? Would you ever take one?’

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On what I thought was coming next.’

  She brushes grass clippings off her skirt and feels the lump of poison in her pocket. Perhaps this time, despite what she has said, she will not throw it away.

  Her voice wavers. ‘Anyway, I am praying to St Barbara for cloud on Saturday night. Then we can all stay here.’

  ‘St Barbara gives protection from storms, so you’re probably helping to keep the sky clear.’ He stretches out his hand, pulling her up against him and whispers in her ear. ‘That’s why, my Ewa, we must make the most of today.’

  The silk of her sleeve clings to his jacket as he takes her hand and guides her across the ditch. Stefan rights the bicycle and they walk, faster than a stroll, towards one of the neat stands of trees that border the long clover field. The copper band on her finger pinches where Stefan’s hand grips hers.

  In the distance, two dark figures are walking briskly at the edge of the field beside a stand of trees. One of them looks like Haller. The other might be Tomasz but she can’t tell.

  Ewa and Stefan step from the field edge into a dapple of shade beneath the trees. Ewa blinks as her eyes adjust to the light. Without a word, Stefan releases her hand and crouches down. He seems to be pulling up a wide swathe of the woodland floor. Then Ewa sees that it is a tarpaulin sheet camouflaged with leaves. Beneath it, oil cans and outdoor lamps are laid out in neat rows. A whiff of kerosene cuts through the wet soil dankness.

  Stefan stares for a moment then adjusts the tarpaulin and re-secures the edge with a tent peg.

  He wipes his hands on his trousers. ‘Over there. Come on.’

  Dense holly bushes fence off a tight circular clearing. Ewa follows Stefan in, pushing through the prickle of waxy leaves, before sinking down beside him so that they cannot be seen.

  Lightly, Stefan strokes his fingertips along the curve of Ewa’s cheek. ‘My Ewa, my darling…’

  Ewa takes his hand in hers and presses it to her lips. Then she whispers. ‘Whatever happens, don’t go back to that English girl, the pilot. Promise me.’

  ‘Of course, my love. I am your husband now.’ He pushes the hair from her eyes. ‘And you… if any of the officers at the guest house…’

  ‘There is no one but you, Stefan. Always. Always.’

  ‘Ewa…’

  His breath is hot on her face.

  ‘Stefan…’

  His hand slips from Ewa’s waist to her thigh and already he is pushing up her skirt. Cool woodland air washes the bare skin above her stockings and heat rips through her. But she takes hold of Stefan’s hand.

  ‘Stefan… slow down.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Slower, darling. Make it last. Who knows how long we will have to remember this…’

  He groans and rolls over, pushing down on to her. Coppery fragments of dead leaves latch on to her hair. Stefan begins to cover her face in light, frantic kisses.

  ‘Ewa, don’t say that. Come with me on Saturday, please…’

  ‘Stefan…’ But then she presses a fingertip over his lips. ‘Shhh…’

  Because nearby in the wood, something is moving. And then Stefan hears it too. A cough. A man is close by. So close that he must have heard them.

  Stefan turns over and sits up, fumbling his shirt back into his waistband. Ewa’s hand slides away from his skin. For a second, she suspends the hand in air, not wanting it to touch, ever again, any surface except the smooth warmth of Stefan’s back.

  The moment though, has passed, and Ewa feels with a dull thud of certainty that they will not get another chance. She sits up and before she has even realised that she is crying, a teardrop leaves a dark trailing stain on the lilac silk of her blouse.

  Stefan’s head bobs up above the holly-leaf screen, before he again sinks down.

  ‘It’s just Tomasz. We should ignore him.’

  But both of them know it is too late.

  Ewa shakes her head and straightens her skirt as she stands. Not far off, Tomasz is leaning on a tree trunk and smoking a pipe. He is pretending that he has not yet seen them but is so close that this must be a ruse.

  Stefan pushes through the thicket and as Ewa puts on her sweater, she hears him tell Tomasz that there are not enough oil lamps; there must be one for every eighty metres on both sides of the field. Tomasz replies that he will tell Haller and try to get some more. Stefan says that at least fifty men are needed to light and extinguish the lamps when given the commands. Then both men lower their voices and Ewa has the nasty feeling that she is being talked about. Her shoes stay unlaced as she strides towards them.

  Tomasz waves. He is wearing a long brown shop-coat.

  ‘Ah, the blushing bride!’

  Ewa can only bear to meet his eye for a second. ‘I must be going.’

  She looks around for her bike as Stefan reaches over and pulls a flake of brown leaf from her hair.

  ‘He says he will give you a lift, at least to the aircraft factory. Your bicycle is already on the back of his truck.’

  ‘I…’

  But she is suddenly unable to speak. If she says anything she will weep.

  The milk-churn truck, with a rounded bonnet and planked wooden sides, is parked at the edge of the trees. Ewa does not touch Stefan again, hardly looks at him, before she climbs in. The cab smells of chicken shit and straw. Tomasz turns the ignition switch then lets the engine judder as he sucks a spark through the tobacco in his pipe. His cheeks bubble in and out as caramel pipe smoke suffocates the other smells in the cab. From the shado
w of the wood, Stefan waves his arm slowly as the truck turns around. But Ewa does not wave back. She is reminded, horribly, of that other farewell beside a train leaving for Warsaw. Could this again be the start of a separation that will last for years? Or forever? Perhaps this time, if she waves back, it will break the spell of bad luck. But Stefan’s outline has already melted into the shifting shadows of the trees.

  Tomasz drives faster than seems safe on the pot-holed lane. He takes both hands off the steering wheel to change the double gears and Ewa has to hold on to the door as they turn on to the new highway. He revs the engine, pumping his foot on the clutch and flipping the two gear levers back and forth as the truck gains speed. The silhouettes of young poplar trees race across the windscreen. He is clearly trying to impress her. Conversation might at least slow him down, and stop her thinking about the choice she must make tomorrow.

  ‘What do you do in the factory?’

  ‘I’m not supposed to say.’

  ‘As you like.’

  ‘I’m the supervisor in the radio location workshop. That’s how I’m able to obtain one of the Neptun receiver systems to send to the Allies. It’s all top-secret stuff.’

  She snorts, but the engine is probably too loud for him to hear. ‘Big, is it? The Neptun?’

  ‘Not especially.’

  ‘Isn’t it? I thought that’s why the Dakota is coming, because the Neptun is too bulky to send overland with couriers?’

  ‘Well, it’s easier to send it by air, of course. But that’s not the main reason for the plane coming.’

  ‘What is the main reason?’

  ‘For the passengers.’

  She slides Tomasz a sideways glance. More than one passenger then. Has Stefan told him about his plan to take Ewa back to England? For the first time, she lets herself imagine Stefan leading her by the hand past the whirring propellers of the cargo plane, up the stepladder and into the hold. But Stefan knows that she will not leave without her father.

  ‘And how many passengers will there be?’

  Tomasz shrugs, as if this is obvious. ‘Apart from your husband, just one.’

  Ewa looks out of the window so that he cannot see the flush of anger on her face. If Stefan believes that a copper band around her finger is all that is needed to control her life, he will be in for a shock tomorrow night.

  ‘Ste.., I mean Anatol told you this, did he?’

  ‘Well, I knew about the details of this action some time ago.’

  ‘The action? You mean Operation Eagle?’

  The truck is going faster than it should be. The loose bicycle clunks on the empty flatbed and the speedometer waggles uncertainly at the top of the dial.

  ‘That as well.’

  She turns to look at him. ‘As well as what?’

  But the long, low hangars of the aircraft factory have come into view and Tomasz is starting up another performance although in the opposite direction, with the clutch and the double gears. The truck jerks and bumps as it slows.

  Then he speaks with the tobacco pipe clenched at one side of his mouth and only one hand on the wheel.

  ‘I thought your husband would have told you by now.’

  ‘Told me what, for God’s sake?’

  ‘About his going back on the Dakota.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course he has.’

  ‘And about the other passenger.’

  ‘Who do you think that person is?’

  ‘I know who it is.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gauleiter Greiser, of course.’

  Ewa wills her face to stay blank but it has already gone rigid with horror. What is Tomasz talking about? Why, in God’s name, would the most senior Reich officer in Wartheland want to travel to England? And if Greiser is the other passenger, what about Ewa?

  Tomasz laughs. ‘Ah, sorry! You didn’t know.’

  He slams his foot on the brake pedal and Ewa jerks forward as the truck comes to a stop by a cluster of birch trees that hides it from the factory gates. The engine ticks and whirrs.

  A half-smile is fixed to his mouth. ‘Don’t worry, we have the action fully prepared.’

  Ewa fights the urge to put her hands around his throat and shake him. She pushes on the handle and the door begins to creak open.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, either tell me what the nature of this action you are talking about is or shut up.’

  The half-smile fades as Tomasz chews on the pipe stem.

  ‘Well, I thought you would have been told. Maybe your husband thinks it safer for you not to know.’

  ‘So, are you going to bloody well tell me or not?’

  ‘Well, I suppose I have started now, so I should finish.’ Tomasz takes the pipe from his mouth and sighs. ‘On Saturday evening, whilst you are doing your best to get Gauleiter Greiser and his cronies drunk, your husband and I will come into your guest house yard and hide behind the toilet block. As soon as Greiser needs a piss we’ll nab him, throw him in the back of this truck, and drive him to the landing ground. Then your husband will deliver him to the English on the Dakota. The best present that Mr Churchill has ever had!’

  Ewa slides out of the truck and slams the door. And before Tomasz can come to help her, she has lifted her bike off the flatbed, mounted up and is pushing down on the pedals to hurry away. She picks up speed easily, standing up over the seat to ride faster.

  Concrete whizzes under the wheels and her thoughts cannot at first catch up. But it seems that by this time on Sunday, her life will have changed forever. She will either be with Stefan, emerging from the Dakota on to a drizzly airfield with a British intelligence officer asking who the hell she is, or she will be lying half-dead on the floor of a cell in Gestapo HQ. There seems no possibility in between. And Ewa cannot, for the life of her, imagine that either thing will ever really happen.

  Posen, Greater German Reich

  Saturday 9 October

  The Gauleiter’s spoon is suspended over a bowl of mushroom soup as he stares at Ewa’s dress. Is he scrutinising the homemade cut of the Dirndl that she has copied from a magazine? She has never seen the real thing so the neckline frill and butter-yellow paisley pattern are probably not quite right; a Volksdeutsche attempt at real German. Ewa tries to look at Gauleiter Greiser’s thinning hair and not meet his wide calculating eyes. With luck, he is simply admiring her breasts.

  Raised voices and throaty laughter are starting to drown out the accordion whine from the gramophone. In the middle of the long crowded table a hand goes up. Ewa does not recognise the reddened face above a collar patch with four pips.

  She goes over, smiling. ‘Beer, Sturmbannführer?’

  ‘Water. In a jug.’

  ‘Are you sure? There is beer, pale and dark. Or wine?’

  His eyes pin her. ‘Water, I said.’

  Her heart thumps. ‘Yes, Sturmbannführer, of course.’

  She leaves the dining room and hurries along the passageway into the kitchen, heart still pounding. The diners should have been in a celebratory mood tonight and there is no clear reason for their abruptness. Ewa shudders as the cold tap screeches into an earthenware jug. All of the glass pitchers are already full of beer that no one is drinking.

  Outside, the old town hall clock strikes nine tinny chimes. Above the electric-lit yard, black gable-rimmed rooftops pattern the moon-pearl sky. There is no cloud at all. Nothing to stop the Dakota.

  Perhaps Stefan and Tomasz are already out there behind the toilet block, waiting. Ewa tries to focus on the decision she must make. It will be the most important of her life; more momentous than choosing to go on the DV list, or to join the AK or even to marry Stefan. And, although he does not know it yet, Ewa’s choice will be the turning point of her father’s life too. But all that her brain can seem to consider is the state of the Schnitzels that are toughening in the stove whilst the Strudel
s turn soggy. Her mind would rather keep count of loaves and beer jugs than imagine how she will get herself and her father on to a transport plane to London in only three hours’ time.

  ‘Eva.’

  Water splashes up from the rim of the jug, spattering her yellow bodice. She flinches but remembers to smile.

  ‘Yes, Heinrich?’

  ‘Could I trouble you for another basket of bread? The soup is delicious and some of the diners wish to wipe out their bowls.’

  ‘Of course. I will bring it.’

  ‘Shall I carry something for you?’

  ‘No, no, please don’t trouble yourself. But you are very kind.’

  Her heart is beating too fast. She goes to the dresser, wraps a white linen cloth around the end of a dark brown loaf and cuts slices from it. Beck stands by the door, hands in the pockets of his wide trousers. His black jacket is buttoned right up to the metal cross at his collar.

  ‘This is a big night for you, Eva.’

  She keeps her eyes down. Does he know something? Has Stefan, God forbid, already told him where the smelly suitcase will be going and how it will get there? But that would be madness. She must assume that Beck knows nothing, and keep acting as though there is nothing to know.

  The sharpened knife cuts dark bread into thin even slices.

  ‘It is such an honour to host the Gauleiter’s celebration. Do you think he is happy with the menu? And the surroundings?’

  Beck nods. ‘I heard him say how delightful the small German establishments in the city can be.’

  Ewa puts the bread with its white cloth into a basket and takes the jug in her other hand. Beck lets her pass, clicking his heels softly as he moves out of her way.

  In the dining room, Ewa stands against the wall watching men mop soup. The red-faced Sturmbannführer is loud and annoying. He bellows to his neighbour about the time he commandeered a newly assembled 190 from the Focke-Wulf factory here in Posen and made the test pilot fly to RHSA headquarters in Berlin, landing right on Prinz Albrecht Strasse. He laughs raucously but he is not drinking. No one is. Not even beer. Greiser sits with an untouched glass of Riesling.

  Alenka, the liaison girl sent by Haller, stands awkwardly in a summer dress at the other side of room. Ewa signals to her to start clearing the bowls then follows her into the kitchen with a loaded tray. As they stack smeared crockery into the sink, Ewa lowers her voice into Polish.