He held up the sheet.
‘God, man, you look terrible. Can you hear me? Look at you, covered in blisters. Jesus help you, you’re sunburnt all over.’
Bruno opened the windows, coughing. ‘You need air in here.’
Janusz opened his eyes. The wallpaper swirled. He tried to speak, but his lips cracked and he tasted blood again.
‘He cannot stay here.’
The landlady stood in the doorway, black and grey hair piled high on her head, coral-pink lipstick and spidery black eyelashes.
‘Stupid boy. You are too fair for the sun. Look at you. You’re dried out like a piece of salt cod.’
Janusz heard Bruno pleading in a broken mix of French and Polish. He forced his dry lips to whisper: ‘I am sorry, Madame. I’ll leave. It’s not safe for you to have me here.’ Levering himself off the bed on an elbow, he gestured to Bruno. ‘Hand me my clothes.’
‘No, no, no.’ The woman sighed. ‘You speak French; that makes it easier. I’ll find somewhere for you to go. I have a friend with a farm. You can rest there.’
She stared at his naked body. ‘When you’re better you can work for them. You’re stocky enough. You look like a peasant.’
A day later, Janusz set out, clothes sticky and uncomfortable, body stiff and painful. As the cart carried him higher into the hills beyond Marseilles the air became sweeter. The smell of the sea faded and was replaced by the scent of pine trees and hot greenery.
Ipswich
Silvana refuses to think of Tony. She avoids walking through the park and stays away from the pet shop. It is hard to keep him from her mind, but she manages it. Every time an image of Tony comes into her head – his brown eyes, his curling black hair shiny with oil, his hands moving as he talks – she clamps down on it, concentrating on the duster she is holding or the coal she is shovelling in the small coal store in the backyard. Like a tailor using only what material they have in their hand, she fashions her life with Janusz.
‘You’re not to play with Peter any more,’ she tells Aurek one evening as she prepares their supper. She busies herself at the stove, banging saucepans together loudly, scraping at their bubbling contents with a wooden spoon, her voice rising over the noise. ‘Aurek? Did you hear me?’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ She throws the wooden spoon into the sink and faces the boy. ‘What do you mean, why? You will do as you are told, do you hear me? He’s not your friend any more.’
She doesn’t mean to, but the way the boy looks at her, defiantly, as if she is someone to be hated, makes her lash out at him, her hand connecting with his shoulder. He staggers and falls sideways, knocking himself against the table, then scrambles to his feet, backing away from her.
‘Aurek! No,’ she says, horrified. She has never hit him. Never. ‘No,’ she cries. ‘I’m sorry.’
Aurek darts out of the kitchen, through the hall, fumbling with the front-door latch before she can reach him. She grabs the door as he opens it, trying to catch hold of him, but he slips outside into the dark evening, straight out into the pouring rain.
She knows there’s no point in going after him, but she walks the streets, splashing through puddles, the blackness of the night pressing against her eyes. For an hour she searches, although she knows it is no use. He will not come back until he is ready.
‘Where on earth have you been?’ says Janusz when she comes back into the house.
She stands blinking in the hallway, her hair dripping water into her eyes. The house smells of burnt food, and she remembers the pans she left on the stove. The kitchen door is open and she can see a pall of cooking smoke drifting just above their heads.
‘It’s Aurek,’ she says. ‘He’s outside. He’ll come back. We have to wait.’
Two hours later, there is a knock at the front door and Aurek stands there, his clothes soaked through, hair plastered smooth and dark as an otter. It’s more than Silvana can stand. She pushes past Janusz, ignoring the way Aurek shrinks from her.
‘Aurek, let me dry you …’
Janusz puts his hand out and pulls her back.
‘Leave him to me. Come on, young lad. Let’s get you dry.’
Aurek looks darkly at Silvana and then puts his hand in Janusz’s outstretched palm. He might as well have stabbed her with a knife.
Silvana sits on the top stair listening to Janusz talking to the boy in his bedroom, explaining that he must not run off. Slowly, it occurs to her that this is something she should be pleased about: the fatherly tone in Janusz’s voice, the quiet sternness. Instead she feels bereft. They don’t need her. Neither of them. They don’t need her at all.
A week later, when Aurek has still not forgiven her, he comes down with a fever. His temperature rises and by the following evening he is as floppy as a rag doll. Silvana pulls dried herbs from jars in the pantry: thyme, stonecrop, willow bark, lavender, all the plants she has gathered and dried through the summer months. She runs a cold bath and throws the herbs into it.
‘Get in,’ she tells Aurek, who is staggering weakly beside her.
Janusz stands at the bathroom door.
‘He’s shivering. Are you sure it’s a good idea? We’ve got aspirin. Can’t you give the boy some aspirin and put him to bed?’
She is not listening. Aurek is ill and it is all her fault.
‘Let me at least look after my son,’ she snaps as she lifts the boy into the bath. ‘This will bring his fever down. But I need birch bark. The fever has to be broken. You’ll have to find some trees. Get me some bark and I can boil it and then add it to the bath. It’s the only way to bring a fever down.’
‘Where the hell am I going to find birch trees?’
‘I tell you, I need birch bark. Brzoza. There’s a copse of birches in Christchurch Park. I’ve seen them. If you won’t go, I’ll do it.’
Silvana knows she sounds like a mad woman. Maybe that is what her time in the forest has done to her. The war has turned her into a Baba Jaga, an old witch of the forests. And it is her fault the child is ill. Worse, she does not know what to do. She looks at Janusz and waits to hear what he has to say. He’s the English one here.
Aurek wraps his arms round his knees and coughs. His ribs shine under the water and he coughs again, sending a spasm through his shoulders.
‘I can’t go into the park at ten o’clock at night,’ Janusz says. ‘For God’s sake. That’s enough of this. Get Aurek into his pyjamas and wrap him up in bed. I’ll go for the doctor.’
‘A doctor?’
‘That’s what he needs. Get him out of the bath. His lips are turning blue.’
She turns her eyes on the child and nods. ‘Yes. You’re right. A doctor. A doctor will know what to do.’
She lifts Aurek, water dripping down the front of her dress, and the child, still burning hot to the touch, faints in her arms. Memories rush towards her, panic rising in her chest. The mud underfoot. The fur coat covered in blood. She is a terrible mother, cursed just like her own mother.
‘Janusz, hurry!’ she screams, but he has already gone. She holds her son tight in her arms and sobs into his neck.
It is raining hard; icy rain that is turning to sleet. Janusz nearly tumbles off his bike, freewheeling down the hill, skidding through freezing puddles. He pumps the pedals, bent over the handlebars, wanting to get to the doctor’s house as fast as he can. Silvana’s fear has taken him over. He no longer thinks the boy just has a bad cold. Now other diseases crowd his thoughts. Polio. Tuberculosis. Pneumonia.
The sleet stings his face and he turns off the main street, hurtling up a gravel driveway. Nothing is more important than the boy. Pedalling like a fury, energy surging through him, he can feel a tight knot of love for his strange son, lodged in his heart, snug as a bar of metal in a lathe. The relief he feels when he sees a light still on in the doctor’s front rooms is so great he throws his bike to the ground and takes the steps onto the porch two at a time, banging on the door with his fists so that the doctor’s wife opens the
door angrily, scolding him for scaring her half to death.
The bedroom is cold. It is the first thing Janusz notices when he shows the doctor into Aurek’s room. He doesn’t bother to take the man’s coat. The way he has left it buttoned up suggests he doesn’t want to part with it.
‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ says the doctor, rubbing his hands together briskly. ‘He’s going to be all right.’
Janusz realizes he has been holding his breath. He sighs with relief. Silvana has tidied the room in the time he was absent: Aurek’s books are lined up; the picture of puppies in a wicker basket hangs straight; the rug looks like she might have swept it. She has forgotten her wet dress, and it clings to her. Janusz finds himself studying the line of her suspender belt, which shows clearly against the soaked fabric. It’s been so long since he last touched her. He turns to face the doctor, hoping he has not seen him staring.
‘It’s chickenpox,’ says the doctor. ‘It’s going round. Half the youngsters at the school are off with it. The fever will be gone by tomorrow morning. Then the spots will come.’
‘Chickenpox?’
‘My own son had it two weeks ago.’
Janusz relaxes. Aurek has something other children have. Something normal and curable.
‘Your son?’
‘A bit late really. My boy’s twelve, and I do think it’s better to get these illnesses done with earlier rather than later.’
‘So Aurek is a good age for chickenpox? He’s the right age for it? It’s a normal thing to have at his age?’
‘Well, yes, you could say that. If his temperature is still up tomorrow, let me know. But I’m sure it won’t be.’
Janusz looks at Aurek lying in bed and strokes the boy’s forehead. He is a normal child. Just like any other. The doctor has just said so. There is a whole world of renewed hope in chickenpox.
When Janusz wakes again at dawn and goes to see the patient, Aurek’s temperature has disappeared and a rash covers his body. The sight of these miraculous spots makes Janusz laugh out loud.
‘Hungry,’ says Aurek, picking at a row of tiny red blisters on his cheek.
‘Are you? Well, that’s a good thing. Come here and look out of the window. I’ve something to show you.’
Silvana is sitting on the edge of the bed looking dazed, as if the blue light of the morning beginning to edge into the room confuses her.
‘There,’ he says as they look down on a white world. ‘Snow. Lots of it. It must have snowed all night.’ He turns to Silvana. ‘You look exhausted.’
Silvana nods, yawns and rubs her eyes. She falls back onto Aurek’s bed and curls up into herself, arms wrapped around her knees. Janusz pauses, looking at her pale cheek, her long-lashed eyes closed as if she is sleeping. He remembers her when she was pregnant with their son, all those years ago, the way she liked to sleep in that position, her arms around her belly as though it were something she was guarding.
She opens her eyes. ‘Thank you for last night. You got the doctor and all I could do was act like a mad woman, calling for birch bark.’
‘You made me think of your grandmother.’
‘She was a good woman.’
‘So are you.’
Janusz takes her hand. This is the closest he has felt to her for months. Aurek being ill has brought them together. And it is right that the boy is the bond between them.
‘I’ll never leave you again,’ he says. ‘Even if there’s another war. I won’t go.’
The moment is obvious to him.
‘Silvana. I think we should try for another child. Give Aurek a little brother.’
Silvana doesn’t reply, and he leans over her and kisses her, feeling her stiffen against his touch.
‘You’re tired,’ he says, pretending not to notice. ‘You should sleep. I won’t disturb you.’
He covers her with a blanket, tucking it around her.
‘Come on,’ he says to Aurek. ‘Let’s get you breakfast. Brush your teeth and wash and I’ll make you porridge.’
While the boy is washing, Janusz goes out into the garden. Everything is covered in white and the sky looks full of more snow to come. Feathery flakes fall steadily around him. In his tiny potting shed he checks his dahlia bulbs are well covered with sand. He is about to shut the door when he stops, lifts the crate of bulbs and pulls a bundle of letters out from under them. He puts them back under the crate. One day he will get rid of them. One day soon. He loves Silvana but he can’t let go of Hélène. Not just yet.
Aurek sits in the kitchen, his eyes sticky with sleep, eating a bowl of porridge. He feels quite well but he can’t understand where the spots have come from. He keeps lifting his pyjama top to look at them. He’d like to ask the enemy to look at them too, but he is busy. Janusz is sitting with his back to him, polishing his boots, buffing black leather, holding up a shining toecap to the light and then furiously rubbing at it all over again, his elbow sliding back and forth like a fiddle player.
‘Are you cold?’ Janusz says, turning his flushed face to Aurek. ‘I can get you a blanket if you’re cold.’
Aurek shakes his head and gives the spots on his cheek a scratch.
‘Don’t touch them,’ warns Janusz. ‘Come on, eat your porridge.’
Aurek takes a spoonful.
‘We’re all right together, aren’t we?’ says Janusz. ‘You and me?’
Janusz puts his boots on the floor and rubs them over with a cloth.
‘Would you like a brother one day? Or a sister? Aurek, are you listening? A new baby would be fun, wouldn’t it?’
Aurek considers this. He thinks of his mother and shakes his head. He doesn’t want to share her with a baby.
‘Well, we might one day. One day we might give you a brother, and you’d be the eldest. You’d have to help look after him.’
Janusz pulls his boots on.
‘We don’t get much time on our own, do we? Your mother keeps you all to herself. Tell me. Do you remember the forest you lived in?’
Aurek frowns. He hates these kinds of questions. He digs his spoon in his porridge and stirs it.
‘I’d like to hear about it,’ Janusz says. ‘When I get back from work you can tell me, hmm?’
Aurek’s mother never talks about the forest, and the enemy always wants to. Between them, Aurek feels like he is a secret neither will share properly. But the enemy is smiling at him, and Aurek tries to think of something to say that will keep the smile there.
‘When I was a baby I swallowed a button.’
‘What?’
‘I swallowed a button. You turned me upside down so I didn’t choke.’
The enemy smiles crookedly. ‘That’s right. You swallowed a button. I’d forgotten. But you can’t remember that, surely?’
‘Mama told me. Do I go to school now?’
‘No. You’ll have to stay home until all the spots are gone. I’m off to work. You be a good boy for your mother.’
Aurek follows Janusz to the front door, the tiles icy under his feet.
When Janusz does up his coat and opens the door, a blast of wind nearly knocks Aurek over.
‘A button,’ Janusz says. ‘Fancy that. I’d forgotten. You were always putting things in your mouth when you were a baby.’
Janusz stares out at the day steadily, like a horse that has suddenly lifted its head in a field and looked into the distance. Aurek shuffles closer. He stands behind Janusz’s legs and peers at the fluttering snowflakes outside, at the houses on the other side of the road, their grey windows, the frozen milk bottles on the doorsteps. He touches Janusz’s hand. Perhaps the enemy will try to hug him today? If he does, Aurek will let him.
‘Would you like to make a snowman when I get back from work?’ says Janusz, looking down at him.
‘Now?’
‘No. Not now. After work. Men have to work, you know. You will too, one day.’ Janusz pulls his hat tight over his ears and rubs his hands together. ‘Shut the door behind me,’ he says, and then he is g
one, marching away with his shoulders hunched against the cold.
‘Hurry back,’ whispers Aurek.
He goes upstairs, climbing into bed beside his mother, who looks like she is sleeping, her eyes shut, hair across her face.
‘Am I going to have a brother?’
Silvana opens her eyes. ‘What?’
‘A baby?’
‘No,’ she says, slipping an arm around him. ‘You’re everything we need.’
Aurek curls up beside her and feels glad. She’s right. They don’t need a baby.
Poland
Silvana
It began to rain and the camp turned muddy underfoot. Silvana had almost forgotten the war. Here it was as though they were far from everything, in another world. They lifted their beds higher off the ground, making pallets out of branches and fallen trees, but everything was soaked through and there was no way of drying anything.
The old man stopped getting out of his blankets, staying wrapped up in his own mess day and night. His wife let Gregor take his share of the food. Gregor sat chewing on dry bread while the old woman fussed over him, picking nits from his hair, smiling like an indulgent mother. Elsa and Lottie watched her, and Silvana saw the jealousy in their eyes. The old man stared at the canopy of branches above his head. Maybe he never saw the sky at all. Maybe he wasn’t looking that far.
Silvana took to wandering during the day, walking miles with Aurek on her back. Some nights she couldn’t bear the thought of Gregor so she stayed away from the camp at night too, taking her rabbit skins and making bracken beds for her and the boy. One morning she came back to find the old man staring harder than ever at the sky. The old woman was crying.
‘Is he dead?’ Silvana asked.
‘What?’ Sad-faced Lottie looked up. ‘Him? God, no. He’s not dead.’
22 Britannia Road Page 17
