The Search

by Maureen Myant

  “Can’t do any harm to find out, can it?”

  He doesn’t answer. Instead he goes upstairs. Gisela hears him walking through the rooms above. She tenses as a board creaks. He’s in their daughter’s room. Friedrich never goes there. It is exactly how it was when Helga left for school that day. Her books are still in the little bookcase that Friedrich made for her tenth birthday. She loved to read, lying on the rug in front of the range. The patchwork quilt that was made from scraps of material from Helga’s baby clothes lies over her bed, undisturbed for three years. The footsteps cease. What is he doing? Gisela cannot stand the tension. She goes to the foot of the stairs. “Shall I make some coffee?” she calls. Friedrich grunts in reply.

  She puts the old iron kettle on the range and starts to grind some coffee beans. She savours the comforting aroma. They don’t have fresh coffee often enough. Usually she saves the grains and uses them three, even four times. She measures them out into the pot, careful not to spill any. There’s very little left; it’s hard to get hold of these days. When the water boils, she pours some over the grounds.

  “Come and get this before it gets cold,” she shouts upstairs.

  Friedrich comes down, goes straight to his chair. His eyes are bloodshot, his eyelids puffy. Gisela hands him a cup and takes a sip from her own. For several minutes they sit in silence.

  Friedrich bangs his cup down on the table, making Gisela jump. “There was never a child like our Helga.”

  Gisela nods. “I know.”

  “No one can replace her, no one.”

  “We wouldn’t want to replace her.”

  “Just as long as it’s understood.” He makes as if to rise, but Gisela catches hold of his hand and pulls him down once more.

  “This was your idea, not mine,” she reminds him. “We don’t need to do it.” She waits for him to say something. “You said it might help.”

  “Help, yes. Yes I think we could do with some help round the farm. We’re not getting any younger.”

  Gisela takes his face in her hands and gazes into his eyes. He looks away from her stare, but she persists. “I don’t think that’s what you meant, is it?”

  He shakes his head. “No, but now that you’ve said yes, it’s like a betrayal—”

  “No,” Gisela interrupts. “It’s no such thing. Neither of us wants to replace Helga. But it would be good to try to help a little one, an orphan child. You must write today and say we will do this.”

  Friedrich rises from his chair and goes to the sink. He splashes his face with water and stands for a moment at the window gazing at the fields beyond. “I have no preference,” he says, “girl or boy, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course not,” says Gisela, crossing her fingers behind her back in the old superstitious way that he hates so much. But she daren’t tempt fate, and she is lying. More than anything, she would love a girl to teach baking and sewing and all the arts of keeping a fine house. She would not replace Helga, that was true, but in her heart, Gisela thinks she might ease the pain of the loss, just a little.

  ‌6

  Jan has not seen Lena for three days. Yesterday he put his pride aside and spoke to one of the women who looks after them – he thinks of them as jailers. It hurt him to use German, and he was dismayed to find how easily the words came, without any real effort.

  “Bitte, wo ist meine Schwester?”

  “You have a sister?” The eyes that stared at him were without expression.

  “Yes, her name is Lena. She’s one of the little ones.”

  “With long blonde hair? Yes I know her.” The woman turned aside and carried on with her sweeping.

  Jan persisted. “Do you know where she is?”

  Her eyes reminded him of hard-boiled eggs, the white a greyish black around the iris. “Here you have no sisters, no brothers. Now get on with your work.” She poked him in the belly with the broom, a vicious jab. Jan bent over in pain, biting his tongue to keep from crying out.

  He vows he’ll find out where she is. It’s early in the morning, an hour or so before they have to rise; he slips out of bed and pads across to Pawel. The wooden floorboards are cold beneath his feet; it is not yet spring, and the winter has been harsh. For the sixth day in a row, there is ice on the windows, covering the glass with a white frost. It is beautiful to look at, but lethal to touch. Yesterday, one of the little ones wanted to trace a pattern on it, but his finger stuck to the ice. When he wrenched his finger away, a little bit of skin remained on the window. Jan shiver as he recalls the cries of the child.

  When he reaches Pawel’s bed, Jan hesitates. It’s such a shame to waken him; they have little enough sleep as it is.

  “Pawel,” he whispers, “wake up.”

  Pawel shifts onto his back, but doesn’t open his eyes.

  “Pawel, please… I need your help.”

  One eye opens, peers at him. “What is it?”

  “It’s my sister. I don’t know where she is.”

  Pawel sits up in bed and looks round the room. The rest of the boys are sleeping. He puts his finger to his lips and grabs the blanket from his bed. He beckons to Jan to follow him. They cross the room, careful to avoid the wooden board that always creaks when they stand on it. In the hall there’s a large window with long red curtains. The window has a deep sill; Pawel sits on it, patting the remaining space. Jan jumps up beside him, and Pawel draws the curtains so they can’t be seen. They pull the blanket round themselves.

  “Tell me about Lena,” says Pawel. “When did you last see her?”

  Jan rubs his eyes. He is tired beyond anything he has ever known. Last night he lay in his bed thinking about what to do, as he had done the night before. He isn’t sure, but he thinks that he did not sleep, not for a minute. “I haven’t seen her for three days now.”

  Pawel hits the side of his own head in a gesture of realization. “They must have sent her to a family.”

  Jan doesn’t want to hear this. “Perhaps she’s ill,” he says, “sent to hospital.”

  “No,” says Pawel. “The most likely thing is that they found a family for her.”

  This silences Jan. Lena, taken from him and sent to a German family. How long will it be before she forgets who she is?

  “What am I going to do?” he asks. “Should I ask if I can join her?”

  “I’m sorry,” says Pawel. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do. They don’t keep families together when they do this. It means nothing to them that she’s your sister.”

  Jan thinks of the woman who told him that here they have no brothers or sisters, of her brusque tone of voice. It was as if she really hated him, hated them all. Jan knows how much the Germans hate Jews, his father had told him about it, but he hadn’t realized they hated other people too. It’s frightening to think of so much hatred.

  The two boys sit for some seconds in the quiet of the morning. Jan breathes on the window until the frost melts and he can watch the snow drift in the wind. It’s mesmerizing; he imagines himself out in it, dancing, free from care, free from memories… His eyes glaze over with longing. Pawel pulls at Jan’s arm. “Come on, we should get back to bed. If they catch us…”

  Back in bed, Jan lies waiting for the bell that tells them to get up. He doesn’t know how he’ll do it, but he’s made up his mind. Soon, very soon, he will escape, and somehow he will find Lena and take her home to their village. He ignores the voice inside his head, asking him, “What home?” If there is no home he will make one for her. She is all he has now. He is ready to fall sound asleep when the clamour of the new day starts: bells and women thumping around. There’s nothing for it but to rise and face the hours ahead of him.

  After breakfast, when he is washing some sheets that one of the younger boys has soiled, he turns to Pawel and says, “Tomorrow, I am going to find Lena. Will you come with me?”

  Pawel stares at him. “Are you mad?”

  “Maybe. Will you come with me?”

  “If we do this,” Pawel s
ays slowly, as if he’s thinking while he speaks, “we need to do it properly. It has to be planned, and that will take time. Tomorrow’s too soon.” He raises his hand against Jan’s protest. “Listen to me. If you don’t think it through, then you’ll fail. You’ll be back in here… or worse. We must wait until the weather is warmer. We’ll freeze in no time if we leave while there is still a chance of snow. Think about it. If she has been adopted she could be anywhere in Germany. We might have to walk hundreds of miles, sleep in the open. We can’t rush at this.”

  Jan nods. He knows Pawel’s right, and although he’s desperate to act, it would be much more sensible to work out what to do: he needs to find out where Lena is, hide food to take with him, prepare well.

  “Yes, you’re right. We’ll wait until spring. That will give us plenty of time to plan. Planning, that’s the thing. What do we have to do?”

  Pawel looks round to see that no one is in earshot. “The first thing is that no one, not another soul, must know of this. We must keep this to ourselves. No matter how tempting it is, say nothing. We need time to think it all through. It’ll be weeks before the weather will be warm enough for us to escape, but first of all, if we’re to find your sister, then we need to know where she’s gone.”

  They are silent for some minutes as they think about this. At last Jan speaks. “The office,” he says, “there must be something in there that would tell us.”

  Pawel pulls a face. The office is in the heart of the house; he’s never seen it left unguarded.

  “There must be another way. Perhaps we could ask that woman,” says Pawel. “The one who likes Lena so much.”

  Jan nods. “Yes, she might be able to tell us something. She is very attached to Lena.”

  “It’s worth a shot. Better that than try to get into the office.”

  Waltrud looks down on them. “I don’t know where she is,” she sniffs. “They tell us nothing.”

  “Please, any idea. You must have heard something.”

  “I’m telling you – I haven’t a clue. She could be in Hamburg or Berlin or in the countryside. Anywhere. Germany’s a big country.”

  “Yes, now they’ve stolen so much of other people’s land.” The words are out of Jan’s mouth before he can stop them. He’s speaking in Czech so Waltrud doesn’t understand.

  “You know it’s forbidden to speak, other than in German.” Waltrud glares at them.

  “Es tut mir leid,” says Jan. “I won’t do it again. So you really don’t know.” He smiles up at her, trying to make it genuine. “She was very fond of you, you know.”

  Waltrud sniffs. “Yes, well, she’s gone now. We just have to get on with things.” She starts to move away, then stops. “I offered to take her in, but they wouldn’t agree. Said I was too young, and that I needed to be married. I would have given her a good home.”

  Jan doesn’t doubt it. He doesn’t like Waltrud, for she’s mean to most of the older children, but she’s fond of the younger ones, and Lena liked her a lot.

  Waltrud snorts, and with a shake of her head she moves away.

  A few days later, in the garden, Jan spots the man who usually works in the office, smoking and talking with a pretty young woman who sometimes comes to help in the kitchen. He looks set to be there for some time; he is getting closer to the girl, pawing at her hair. She tilts her head back at him and smiles. Jan is torn between watching them – he’s sure they’re going to kiss – but this is too good a chance to miss. He signals to Pawel, and they sneak upstairs to the corridor which leads to the office.

  “You stay here, and I’ll go to the office.”

  “What if someone comes?” asks Pawel.

  Jan makes a face. “Then we’re done for. I don’t know, shout or something, pretend you’re having a fit. Think of something.”

  He leaves Pawel at the head of the staircase and creeps along the corridor. A floorboard squeaks, and he pauses to see if anyone comes. Nothing, he presses on. When he reaches the door of the office he leans against it and listens. The door is thick, made of oak, and it’s hard to make out any sound. He looks back at Pawel, who is watching the staircase, and mouths I can’t hear anything. Pawel motions him on, but as he is about to try the handle there’s a noise from inside. It sounds like a cough. Jan springs back from the door, his heart thumping. His mind goes blank; all his brave talk is gone, he can’t think of any excuse for being here, there’s nowhere to hide. Fear takes over, and he runs down the corridor, grabs Pawel and hurls them downstairs and out into the open.

  “I told you,” he says when he’s got his breath back. “I told you there’s always someone there.”

  Pawel shakes him off. “It was your idea, not mine.”

  “I know, I’m sorry.”

  “You chickened out. After all your brave talk. The room was empty.” A furious banging from above reminds them that they should be working in the garden, clearing the snow from the path. They get on with their task. Pawel continues to berate Jan for not trying the door. “It could be our only chance.”

  “There was someone in there,” says Jan. “I heard them. We’ll have to think of something else. A diversion.”

  Pawel doesn’t answer. He’s shovelling snow like a madman, it’s going everywhere instead of being piled neatly to one side. Jan stops him. If he carries on, then they will be beaten for doing a poor job. “Look I’m sorry you’re angry, but there was definitely someone there.”

  Pawel slows down, and they carry on shovelling, making sure the snow is on one side of the path like they were told to do.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know. She’s my sister, not yours.”

  “I know that. But I want to get out of here too. And if there are two of us we have a better chance.” Pawel holds out his hand. “I’ll stick by you, if you stick by me.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Well then,” Jan takes his hand and shakes it, “it’s a deal. We’ll think of something – I know we will.”

  ‌7

  It is time. The snows melt, leaving the grass to push through the warm earth. Every day there are more and more birds in the garden. Snowdrops appear, then daffodils and tulips. The warmer weather invigorates the boys; they decide they have to get into the office no matter what. They know they will have only one chance; that if the adults find out what they are planning they might as well give up now. For weeks they have watched the office to try to find a pattern to the adults’ days. The office is never left empty as far as they can see. There is always someone there; when they leave, it is locked up. It seems impossible to get into it, but the boys have a plan. It is risky, but they have to take their chance. They argue over who will search the office. Both boys know that being found in the office would lead to beatings, isolation and God knows what else.

  “It must be me who does it,” says Jan.

  Reluctantly Pawel agrees, and they set a time to carry out their plan.

  Pawel hurtles down the corridor to the office, screaming as loud as he can, “Help, help. You have to come.”

  The door bursts open, revealing a man in army uniform. “What is all this racket?” He glowers down at Pawel from what seems like a terrifying height.

  “Please, you have to come.” Pawel makes his voice as urgent as possible. “The woman in the kitchen said. An accident. A terrible accident.”

  “What’s going on?” A woman joins the soldier. She takes out a hanky and blows her nose.

  Pawel tries to see into the room, sometimes there is a third person there, the man they saw in the garden with the woman, but the room looks empty as far as he can see. He pulls at their hands, starts to cry. “Please come.” The couple look at each other and shrug. “I’ll go,” says the woman.

  “No! It needs two people, she said.” Pawel’s screams rise, echoing down the corridor until they give in and follow him. In the rush, they forget to lock the door behind them and do not notice Jan crouching in the shadows near the top of
the stairs. As soon as they pass he pelts along the passageway and into the room.

  He is sick with fear as he looks round the office. His lips are dry and cracked; he moistens them with his tongue. He makes straight for the filing cabinet.

  Jan pulls open the top drawer. It’s full of files, all with strange lettering, thick and black. Jan draws one out, peers at it, wishing he’d paid more attention in class. He sounds it out, but he’s sure it’s not a name. Try the next drawer. This is it. He spots his name at once, but there is no sign of his sister’s. What if they destroy someone’s file when they leave? They hadn’t thought of that. It would be terrible to go through all this agony and find nothing. He tries the next drawer.

  It’s there, third from the front. Jan pulls the file out. He grabs the papers from inside and stuffs them in his pocket before shoving the file back and closing the drawer. Time to go. As he turns, Jan hears voices in the corridor. Damn – they’re returning sooner than he thought. A glance round the room shows nowhere to hide. He runs to one of the windows, the curtains are floor-length – the only option. Jan steps behind them as the door opens, thanking God that the window looks out to the side of the building where nobody goes.

  “What shall we do with the boy?”

  “Give him a beating. We’ll round up the rest of the children, make an example of him.” The man sounds pleased at this idea.

  “Do you believe what he says? That he did it as a dare?”

  A loud yawn. “Who knows? Does it matter. Beat him hard enough and he certainly won’t do it again.” He laughed at the thought. “Make me some coffee will you?”

  Behind the curtain, Jan hardly dares to breathe. It’s so quiet in the room he thinks they’ll hear him if he moves at all. There’s a tickle in his throat; he wants to cough. Christ, if he does, he might as well shoot himself. He swallows, prays, the urge subsides. The sun beats down on his head, its heat magnified by the glass. It’s unbearably hot. Mustn’t move. Think of cold things: ice, the showers, a swim in the river. God, he’s tired, wants to sleep. Head light, dizzy. Forces his eyes open. If they find him here…