The water had frozen and, to Eda’s horror, the guide told them that they had to walk across. By now Hania was exhausted, so Eda unslung the rucksack and put the child on her back. She was about to pick up the rucksack when the young man with the apple took it from her. ‘My case is quite small,’ he said, ‘I can put your rucksack on my back.’ She almost cried with gratitude.
A chilly mist rose from the river, and after a few minutes her feet ached with cold. She was terrified of slipping on the ice, or taking a wrong step and falling through a crack into the freezing water. Looking at the tense faces of those around her, she knew that if she fell and injured herself, she’d be left there, and she and Hania would die. She didn’t know if it was fear or determination that gave her strength, but somehow she reached the other side, and collapsed onto the frosty ground, sobbing.
As Eda described that unforgettable day, she almost forgot where she was. Suddenly she looked at her daughter. ‘You were such a good child. You didn’t cry once, or complain. Little as you were, you seemed to understand that we were in danger and you had to be very quiet.
‘Our guide left us on the other side of the river, but before he went I made him swear again that he’d pick up Rysio the following day and bring him to Lww. A peasant was waiting for us with a cart, and he took us to Lww. From the moment we got to my parents’ place, I paced up and down the flat like a wild animal in a cage. I couldn’t relax. I kept calling my aunt’s house but no one answered, and when I tried to get in touch with the guide, the people who had recommended him said I had the wrong number and hung up. From their tone, I guessed he must have been caught. I was hysterical. I rushed from room to room like a madwoman. I wanted to tear my hair out. My parents tried to calm me down. They told me not to panic, that there was probably a simple explanation. Our relatives must have moved, or gone to hide in someone’s place, but I knew that the worst thing that could possibly happen had happened, and that it was all my fault.’
She buried her head in her hands and sobbed. ‘It felt as if my heart was being ripped apart inside my chest. I howled like an animal and banged my head against the wall and I wished I could die because I’d left my son to die alone.
‘And when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, the Germans invaded the eastern part of Poland, and another bloodbath started. And this time the Nazis were hunting down Jewish children.
‘There were hardly any Jews left in Lww by then. My parents had been taken away, and I knew it was just a matter of time before someone pointed me out to the Nazis. Whatever happened to me, I had to find someone to look after you, so you’d survive. And that’s how I came to choose Mr and Mrs Majewski.’
The Majewskis, a Catholic couple who lived in the apartment next door to her parents, had no children, and Eda had noticed that whenever Mrs Majewska saw Hania her usually stern face softened and she stopped to talk to her, and sometimes gave her a small toy or a sweet. In desperation, Eda knocked on their door and begged them to take the child. At first they hesitated. They loved little Hania, but everyone knew they didn’t have any children, so it would be obvious they were looking after a Jewish child. But the thought of Hania being thrown into a truck and killed kept Mrs Majewska awake at night, and she came up with a solution. They would move to her parents’ village. Life in the country would be safer there for them as well as for Hania. As they hadn’t been there for several years, they could pass Hania off as their own child. ‘Thank God she doesn’t look Jewish,’ Mr Majewski said. Although Eda tried to put a positive interpretation on his words, they chilled her. But there was no choice. The child’s survival was all that mattered.
Eda looked at Hania and hoped that her daughter would finally understand, and stop resenting her. ‘I was so grateful to them for taking you that I didn’t dwell on the possibility that they might put anti-Semitic ideas in your head, or that they mightn’t want to give you back. Knowing that you were safe was the only thing that kept me going all the years I was in the camp. That, and the hope that one day I’d find Rysio and your father. I used to dream of the day I’d see you again and hold you in my arms. It never occurred to me that when I finally came back you wouldn’t want me.’
Hania looked close to tears. ‘I miss them so much,’ she whispered. ‘They loved me. They saved my life.’
‘You are my life,’ Eda replied.
A hundred questions were racing through Hania’s mind. There was so much she wanted to know about the brother she hadn’t known. Within a single hour she had found him and lost him. What did he look like? What did he like doing? Was he good at school? Did he like playing with her? Did he love her? Did she love him? It was unbearable to think that she’d had a brother whom her mother had never even mentioned. She’d kept him a secret and, as usual, she’d locked Hania out of her life.
Several times Eda started to say something but Hania was too distraught to listen. ‘I bet you wish I was the one you left behind, and he was the one who survived,’ she burst out, and rushed from the room sobbing.
She had to be alone. Too much pain, too much guilt, too many secrets. She curled up on her bed and clasped the little gold cross in her hand. She tried to recall the big brother she had probably adored, but she couldn’t remember anything about him, and a wave of confused emotions swept over her. Anger towards the Nazis, pity for her mother, grief for her brother, regret for her foster parents, and sadness for herself. The war had always seemed to be her mother’s tragedy, but now for the first time Hania realised that she had lost far more than just her foster parents. She saw herself as that scared child in the barn with strangers, crossing the frozen river and then witnessing her mother’s hysteria and grief, and sensing that something terrible had happened and that her mother wasn’t strong enough to protect her.
It was too much to absorb, too much to cope with. Her brother had died but she had survived. Why? Was that pure chance, or part of a divine plan? But what kind of God lets children be killed, and favours one child over another? And what about Jesus and what he said about little children? Were those just empty words?
She didn’t know how long she lay on the bed, clutching the cross so tightly that it became imprinted on her hand, and feeling overwhelmed by questions that had no answers, and emotions that threatened to pull her into a whirlpool in which she would drown. With a cry she gripped her throbbing head with both hands, and didn’t notice that the cross had slid to the floor.
After a time, the darkness lifted and, through a narrow crack in her confused mind, a chink of light appeared. She slipped off the bed, tiptoed down the dark hall to the lounge room. Her mother was slumped in her chair under the lamp, her head in her hands. She started when Hania’s shadow fell across her face and she caught her breath, as though she’d seen a ghost.
‘That day we escaped across the border and you left Rysio behind,’ Hania said slowly. ‘You really chose me, didn’t you, Mamusia?’
Tears filled Eda’s eyes. ‘Of course I chose you,’ she whispered, and drew her closer.
Hania flung her arms around her mother’s neck, and they clung to each other without speaking.
Chapter 37
Verna Browning hurried across the road with a batch of scones she’d just baked, and found Kath sitting alone in the kitchen.
‘I’ve found a nurse who might be able to help Meggsie but I can’t afford to pay her,’ she sighed.
Verna put her hand on Kath’s shoulder. ‘Isn’t there anyone who could help you out?’
Kath shrugged. ‘My sister lives out west, and my brothers are in the navy. I’ve never been able to rely on any of them for anything. If I don’t find a job soon, I’ll have to ask Gran to lend me some money to tide me over. She thinks I’m a no-hoper as it is, so I’ll never hear the end of it.’
Verna walked home slowly, on a carpet of bruised frangipani flowers which released their perfume as she stepped on them. Life was so unfair. Her husband dead in battle, Kath deserted, and Meggsie stricken down. The minister in her church alw
ays said that everything happened for a reason, but you had to wonder what reason there could possibly be for all that unhappiness.
As she opened her wooden gate she heard the dry scritching sound of a whisk broom on the tile verandah next door, and knew that Maude McNulty was out there, watching everything as she swept.
‘So what’s the latest with the barmaid?’ she asked in her reedy voice.
Although Verna made a point of not discussing Kath with her cranky neighbour, she was so upset by Kath’s predicament that she blurted out, ‘The poor thing’s having such a bad time. That boy of hers is just wasting away, and there’s a nurse who could help him if only Kath had the money.’
She shook her white head and sighed. ‘Lord only knows what will become of him.’
‘I always said she should put him in one of those places for cripples,’ Maude McNulty said, leaning on her broom.
‘Well that’s very helpful,’ Verna snapped, and without another look in her neighbour’s direction, she went inside, slamming the door behind her.
‘Nasty old witch,’ she muttered to herself, and wished she’d held her tongue.
The plight of the boy next door was on Emil’s mind too. Every evening when he came home from the furniture factory he would sit in front of the coffins and light the candles, his head bowed and eyes closed, as if in prayer. But as soon as he rose and started pottering around the kitchen to make himself some dinner, it was the red-headed boy next door who occupied his thoughts.
A week after his first visit, he rang their doorbell again. This time Kath beamed when she saw him, and without waiting for him to speak, she led him straight into Meggsie’s room.
‘Mr Emil, do you think God always punishes us when we do something wrong?’ Meggsie asked.
‘Sometimes He punishes people even when they don’t do anything wrong,’ he said bitterly.
Meggsie looked puzzled. ‘How do you know?’
‘Believe me, I know.’
They sat in silence while Emil looked around the room. A half-empty glass of water stood on a pile of tattered comic books on a small plywood table, and beside the comics stood a balsawood model of a Spitfire. On top of the crocheted patchwork quilt on the bed lay an open book, face down, and when Emil bent his head to read the title, he caught his breath. It was Heinz’s favourite story, the one Emil used to read to him in their Berlin apartment every night before he went to sleep. The memory was so sharp that he clutched his chest as though he’d been stabbed.
‘Are you okay, Mr Emil?’ Meggsie asked.
Emil nodded. When he could speak again, he said, ‘This book is wonderful.’
‘It’s my favourite book,’ Meggsie said.
When Kath put her head around the door half an hour later, they were discussing tunnels and whether it was possible to dig your way through stone to escape.
She cleared the small table, placed a tray with two cups of tea and some scones on it, and went out again.
As they sipped their tea, Emil looked at Meggsie.
‘Why do you ask if God punishes people?’ he asked.
Meggsie shrugged. ‘Just wondering. There are so many people on earth, how does God know what everyone’s been doing? And how does He arrange the punishment?’
Emil knew why Meggsie felt guilty, and he sometimes wondered if the boy would ever admit what he’d done.
‘I’m sure God understands that even good boys sometimes do naughty things,’ he said.
‘But you said that He punishes good people too.’
The conversation had moved into treacherous depths, beyond metaphysics and philosophy into the personal experience of evil, and Emil didn’t know how to extricate himself from it. The boy had a good mind and deserved sensible answers, but Emil didn’t want to disillusion him. In any case, he wasn’t a philosopher or a clergyman, and he didn’t feel qualified to engage in such a discussion. Or perhaps he was too well qualified.
‘God did punish me,’ Meggsie was saying. He spoke so slowly and quietly that he might have been thinking aloud. ‘That’s why I got sick and won’t ever be able to walk again.’
Emil leaned towards him. ‘Why do you say that? That’s not true. You will get better and then you’ll walk again.’
But Meggsie was shaking his head. ‘No I won’t. It’s impossible.’
Emil jabbed his index finger at Meggsie. ‘Nothing is impossible. Remember Edmond Dantès.’
Meggsie looked taken aback by Emil’s forceful tone but he shrugged and looked away.
‘That was just a story,’ he said dully.
That night, as he tried to get to sleep, Meggsie couldn’t get the image of Mr Emil’s momentary transformation out of his mind. He’d never heard him speak so forcefully before. It was almost as though he’d turned into another person. Mr Emil was the most terrific person he knew and he hoped he’d never find out why Meggsie was being punished. He knew he should own up and say he was sorry for what he’d done, but if he did, Mr Emil might never come to see him again. He couldn’t risk that.
Late at night, after the boys had gone to bed and she had finished all the chores, Kath sat in the kitchen, racking her brains for a way out. There weren’t many options. She’d done the rounds of the local stores and restaurants, but those that had vacancies wanted someone full-time, and she had to be home part of the day to look after Meggsie. If only she could find the money to pay that Kenny nurse. Her only chance was to ask her former boss at the pub for help. He’d probably lend her the money, but she knew what he’d expect in return. She would do almost anything to help Meggsie, but not that.
Kath’s problems had played on Verna’s mind all day, and over dinner that evening she turned to Ted.
‘You reporters spend most of your time writing about crooks and swindlers, but what about all the ordinary decent people who have to battle all the time?’
‘Vice sells papers, virtue doesn’t,’ he said as he cut his steak. ‘That’s a fact of life.’
‘Well I think it’s a bloody shame.’
Ted raised his eyebrows. His mother really had a bee in her bonnet about the kid across the road. But he had his own obsession too. He caught himself searching for Lilija on the tram, in the city streets or at the beach, always scanning the crowd for a glimpse of her dazzling face. At home he often hung around the front gate, smoking a cigarette or pushing the leaves and fallen flowers backwards and forwards on the tiled verandah just in case she happened to walk past.
On a warm summer evening with a clear starlit sky and a bright crescent moon, Ted stood in the doorway blowing smoke rings into the air, fighting an aching feeling of emptiness.
Although he’d dismissed his mother’s comment, it bothered him. There was no denying that his profession focused on the worst traits of human nature. Something his father used to say flashed into his mind. ‘You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do a lot about the width and depth of it.’ He dismissed the uncomfortable thought. After all, he had plenty of time to create some depth in his life.
Grinding his cigarette butt on the verandah with his shoe, he kicked it into the dirt and took another look at the empty street. Somewhere a cat on heat was yowling, and the strident sound made his scalp prickle. And then he saw her. Closing her front gate carefully behind her, she crept along the street, keeping to the shadowy part of the footpath. He flattened himself against his front door, wondering where she was going alone at night; then, to his amazement, she stopped outside his gate, glanced around and placed her hand on the latch.
As he came out of the shadows, her hand flew to her mouth to suppress a cry of surprise. Her face was as white and taut as the time he’d come to her home and, despite the warm air, she was trembling.
‘I waited for them to sleep so I could come.’
She spoke in a whisper and kept looking around.
He drew her onto the verandah, breathing in the floral fragrance of her skin. It had been so long since he’d heard the Baltic lilt of her voice an
d seen the little pointed tips of her ears showing through hair that gleamed in the moonlight.
‘How come you wanted to see me?’ His voice was muffled, and for some reason he had to keep clearing his throat.
She looked down at her hands. ‘I think about you. All the time.’
Ted was grappling with so many conflicting emotions that he couldn’t think clearly. Resentment, anger and confusion were mixed up with the rapture of seeing her again and hearing the words he’d dreamed of for so long. She shivered again, and he put his arm around her slim shoulders and drew her down onto the doorstep beside him. They sat in silence, her head resting on his shoulder.
He drew away and looked into her eyes until she met his gaze. ‘Why did it take you so long?’ he asked.
She bit her lip. ‘You do not understand. You are Australian. I am Latvian. What my father says, I must do.’
‘But you didn’t tonight,’ he said.
She glanced around again. ‘I couldn’t wait more. But I cannot upset him. He had bad time in war. Sometimes he shouts in sleep. He has, how you say it, night horses?’
Ted’s resentment rose up again. ‘What on earth does your father have against me? Is it because I’m an Aussie?’
She nodded. ‘And you are journalist. He says journalists are, how you say, animals that eat dead bodies.’
‘Hyenas,’ he said bitterly. ‘So he’s got it in for me because I’m a reporter.’
‘He don’t — doesn’t like things you write.’
He was about to ask which of his articles had upset her father so much, when he looked at her, leaning against him with her hair spread out on his chest. Why waste time trying to analyse her father and his wartime nightmares? Bending down, he kissed her lips and pressed her so tightly against him that he could feel every contour of her soft body.
‘I love you, Lilija,’ he said in between kisses. ‘I can’t live without you. You’re all I think about. We’re going to be together, no matter what your father thinks of journalists or Australians. This is Australia, he can’t lock you up and tell you how to live. You’re not a child.’
Empire Day Page 25
