22 Britannia Road

by Amanda Hodgkinson

  Marysia was begging the soldier to forgive her.

  ‘You know I’m yours,’ she was saying, her hands pulling at the soldier’s arm. ‘I was going to tell you. Believe me. I was going to tell you about him, to hand him over to you. Mama, tell him.’

  ‘She’s right,’ cried her mother, lifting her head. ‘This man told us he was a doctor. We didn’t believe him. Marysia was going to tell you.’

  The German soldier strode towards the old woman and lifted his gun. A shot rang out and she fell to the ground. Silvana gave a cry and then Aurek screamed and banged on the window. Silvana grabbed him, pushing her hand over his mouth.

  Gregor looked up at the house, straight at her. The soldier looked over too, following Gregor’s gaze. They had both seen her. A cold sludge of fear numbed her, made her legs as heavy as stone. She took her hand off Aurek’s mouth.

  ‘Come out!’ yelled the soldier, waving his gun towards her. ‘You, in the house. Come out now.’

  Silvana took Aurek’s hand and led him out onto the front porch.

  ‘If I tell you to run,’ she whispered to him, ‘you go as fast as you can. You just go.’

  The soldier was younger than she had thought. If you took him out of his uniform and put him in peasant clothes, you might have thought him a younger brother to Marysia. And yet, with his gun in his hand, and anger flushing his cheeks, he held his ground and the rest of them stood silently watching him, obedient as sheep in a pen.

  She took another step towards the small group in the yard. She was aware of movement behind the soldier and saw Antek, the old man, stumbling to his feet.

  The soldier was still beckoning to Silvana. He looked her up and down, and she wondered if he was imagining her as his new mistress. Someone to take over from Marysia. All the time that he stared at Silvana, his eyes creeping over her, she knew he was unaware of the old man getting closer to him. She straightened her back and pushed her chest forwards, tried to swing her hips slightly as she walked. Maybe this was sheer madness, but the old man was so near to him, it was surely worth the attempt.

  The soldier didn’t see the old man until Antek had his arms around his neck. As Antek pulled him down like a wrestler in a fairground ring, Marysia ran over to them, hitting and kicking the soldier in the back. Silvana let go of Aurek’s hand.

  Gregor yelled at her. ‘Go! Get away while you can!’

  He ran past the truck and down the farm track towards the forest.

  Marysia yelled after him. And then, when it was obvious he wasn’t going to stop, she began to spit and scream at him. ‘Fuck you! Run, you coward. Fuck you!’

  Silvana stared at his retreating figure for a second. Gregor was leaving? Running away?

  Aurek was beginning to cry, his face twisted with fear. Antek and the soldier were on the ground, Marysia trying to grab the gun. Silvana looked around. She had to help them. She shook herself free from Aurek, picked up a stone jar on the ground and hurried towards the scrabbling group, smashing the jar across the soldier’s back.

  The moment she did it she knew it had been a mistake. She hadn’t hit him hard enough; the jar had bounced off his shoulder. It was like smacking a wasps’ nest with a stick. All she’d done was drive him mad with rage and loosened Antek’s grip on him.

  The soldier caught hold of Silvana’s skirts and pulled her down to the ground, lashing out at her with the side of his gun, hitting her cheek square on. Silvana saw stars in blackness. She could hear Marysia screaming and Aurek crying, his voice high-pitched among the rest of them. So this was how she was going to die, she thought, as the soldier’s fist smashed against her ribs. Not in snow but in the light of a summer day, grappling in the dirt with a stranger.

  She tried to escape but he grabbed her leg and pulled her back to him. She kicked out and he clutched her by the hair. It was then that she saw a flash of metal glint in the sunlight. She blinked and stopped fighting. Gregor was back, the woodsman’s axe in his hand.

  Everything moved more slowly then; everything seemed clear. She knew what he was going to do. They all did, all of them understanding the moment.

  The soldier let go of her and Silvana crawled away. A shot rang out, then another, the soldier firing his gun into the air, hampered by Antek’s grip on his arm. Gregor stood his ground and lifted the axe above his head.

  Silvana reached for Aurek, crushed him against her chest, but she knew he heard it. The crack of metal against bone. Again and again.

  She could feel something hot on her face, touched her cheek, and her hand came away bloody. Aurek slipped from her. He was open-mouthed, swaying as if he could hear music somewhere and was letting his body move with it. Blood rained on them. Aurek let out a scream and ran towards the chicken house.

  There was still the frenzy of Gregor slamming the axe down again and again. It was possible to believe that he was chopping firewood and that everything was normal, except that blood and flesh were everywhere and Marysia’s face was full of fear and the old man lay cowering in the dirt beside his dead wife, his hands over his head.

  Silvana backed away. She snatched up her bag and stumbled across the yard. When she reached the chicken house she found Aurek crouched at the back of it, half in, half out of a nest box. She dropped onto her knees and grabbed his leg, pulling him towards her and still he struggled, trying to get back into the nest box.

  ‘Aurek,’ she cried. ‘Aurek, please. We have to go.’

  She gripped the struggling child tightly in her arms, crawled out of the hen house and began to run.

  She crossed the fields where the family cultivated potatoes and sugar beet and kept on running until she reached a deep stream, throwing herself into it, the cold water shocking her, setting her teeth chattering in her jaw, her legs shaking.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she told Aurek through gritted teeth. ‘It’s all right. Hush, my darling. Hush.’

  He was shaking, shivering violently, and she washed the blood off him, rubbing at his hair, scrubbing him clean, ignoring his cries, spitting on his cheek, using her sleeve to clean him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she insisted, tears running down her face. She looked at her dress and saw the bloodstains that had bloomed across it in the water. ‘It’s all right,’ she sobbed, unsure now whether she was soothing herself or the boy. ‘Hush now.’

  She carried the child across the stream and climbed through a bank of brambles on the other side. Swinging him onto her hip, she staggered on across the flat landscape, the midsummer sun high in the sky above them, its heat drying their clothes. When she fell, she picked herself up, running on until she thought her heart would burst. Finally, she came to a wide, deep ditch that separated two ripe wheat fields and slid down into it, unable to go on any further.

  In the muddy water, pulling Aurek to her, hand over his mouth, afraid he might scream, she lay trying to catch her breath.

  She stayed there all day and all through the hot summer night, plagued by whining mosquitoes. At first light, she and Aurek climbed out of the ditch and made their way back into the forest. She could see distant flames across the fields and a spiral of grey smoke. Perhaps soldiers out for revenge had set fire to the cottage. Or maybe Marysia and Gregor and the woodsman had set fire to it and escaped.

  Silvana reached the edge of the forest and the shadows of the trees, waves of dark rolling over her. The calm of pines and spruce and birch, all the trees drawing her and the boy in, letting them become part of their stillness and secrets.

  ‘We’re safe,’ she told Aurek. ‘We’re safe now.’

  The forest was Silvana’s home again. A green world that swallowed up boundaries in its pine-scented gloom. She knew enough, she figured, to live under the trees; how to skin rabbits, cook small birds, hedgehogs, weasels. She could roast rats so that the flesh didn’t dry out. Set fires and build shelters. She knew where the wild fruit was and what mushrooms would be good to eat. She and the boy would learn to move through the trees like ghosts.

  There were
times she thought of leaving the woods, but the memory of Gregor and the others still woke Aurek when he slept. He stopped speaking, making bird noises to himself instead. They were both jumpy like deer, as nervous as the rabbits they trapped.

  By the time the winter came again, they had learned to eat everything they found without wrinkling their noses in disgust. They smelled like animals, and Silvana’s teeth started wobbling in her jaw. Her hair grew long and tangled. Burrs wrapped themselves up in its straggled ends; leaves caught behind her ears.

  Silvana stared into the stream by the camp she had made and tried to study her reflection in the rippling water. If she held strands up to her eyes she could see the grey streaks among the red. She took her knife to it all, sawing at the lumps of matted hair at the nape of her neck. It took ages. She looked in the stream again. Waited for the waters to clear, saw a shadow that was her. That’s better, she thought. Then she did the same to Aurek’s hair. Forest creatures, both of them.

  Janusz

  Scotland smelled of wet dogs and green grass. After a week spent in a secondary school, where they had daily showers and proper meals, they boarded a train heading south. The carriages were packed with soldiers, and girls climbed aboard at every stop, sharing cigarettes and bottles of beer with the men. Bruno got up to stretch his legs and came back with Jean and Ruby. Jean, in a beige dress, sat down next to Janusz. Ruby, a redhead with a long straight nose that made her look fox-like, sat next to Bruno. Janusz smiled politely.

  Bruno tried out his few English phrases. ‘Welcome. God save the King. Thank you. I’d like a single ticket to Doncaster. Will you come to a dance with me?’

  ‘He’s got a way with words,’ said Ruby, laughing. ‘Jean, your one’s got lovely eyes, hasn’t he?’

  ‘He has. You have very nice blue eyes.’ She pointed at hers and then his. ‘Eyes.’

  Janusz nodded. Ruby pulled a hip flask from her handbag. ‘Here, have some of this. It’ll warm your cockles.’

  The train filled with smoke and talk and the laughter of foreign women, and Janusz sat staring out of the window, watching the undulating countryside pass, wondering how he would ever get back to France.

  Ipswich

  Janusz doesn’t care about the flat tyres and dented bonnet. His car is parked outside 22 Britannia Road looking official and proper, and he grins at it as if it were an old friend. The paintwork shines black as coal, and the more Janusz polishes it, the prouder he feels.

  When it arrived, half the street came out to watch, and men who had never said more than good morning to Janusz before shook him by the hand and told him they thought he’d got the prime minister round for tea. They joked that he must be working triple shifts to afford a car like this, and nobody mentioned that it was towed up the hill or that the headlights are smashed and the front bumper still shows the shape of the tree the car smacked into.

  Doris and Gilbert Holborn stand on the pavement beside Janusz.

  ‘Lovely car, a Rover,’ says Gilbert. ‘Best of British. A teacher’s car, you say? No wonder it looks so good. It’ll have been looked after, won’t it? You found your feet in this country, eh.’

  Janusz ignores him. There have been complaints among the workers since he was made foreman. A foreigner in charge. And Janusz has been hurt and surprised to find Gilbert sometimes behaving bitterly towards him.

  ‘It needs a bit of work. A few things need sorting out, but nothing too difficult.’

  ‘I bet your boy will love it when he sees it,’ says Doris. ‘They went off with Tony this morning. I saw them go. I must say, I think it’s very good of him, the way he takes them out so often …’

  ‘I was thinking of getting a car,’ says Gilbert.

  ‘Were you indeed?’ Doris tuts loudly. ‘Don’t be so bloody daft. You spend all our money on beer, fags and the pools. Was it local, Jan?’

  ‘From the other side of town. Do you want to see inside, Gilbert?’

  Janusz unlocks the door and both men sit in the front seats, examining dials and checking the interior.

  ‘You know our Geena is seeing a lad from Romford,’ says Gilbert. ‘Don’t tell Doris, but from what Geena says I think it’s pretty serious. I thought it’d be good to have a car. If he does pop the question, she’ll be living over that way. We could visit them on the weekends. I’d like to do a bit of touring too. Mind you, Doris says she prefers buses.’ He runs a hand over the dashboard. ‘And you’ll be hard pushed to get petrol at the moment. You should ask Tony. He’d be the man to ask. He can get you anything.’

  Janusz lets his hands rest on the steering wheel. He’ll go to the council offices and find out what he is entitled to. He doesn’t want to get anything on the black. It’s not his style to break the law. He adjusts the rear-view mirror and imagines driving away down the hill.

  ‘Tony? Yes, I might ask him, but I think if I’m careful I’ll be able to manage.’

  ‘Would you two like a cup of tea and a biscuit?’ Doris asks, leaning in the open window on the driver’s side.

  ‘I could murder one,’ says Gilbert.

  Janusz nods. ‘Yes, please.’

  They both get out of the car and walk around it one more time. Gilbert pats Janusz on the back.

  ‘You lucky beggar, eh? No hard feelings. Why shouldn’t you be foreman? You work bloody hard. But that’s the thing I don’t get with you foreigners. I suppose you’ve got no other life.’ He walks away into the house, still talking, his back to Janusz. ‘We don’t want to work all God’s hours.’

  ‘I just want to do a good job,’ says Janusz. ‘If we can produce more, then the …’

  Janusz is about to follow Gilbert inside for a cup of tea when he sees Aurek running up the street. The boy looks like he’s crying. He’s stumbling as he runs. As he comes nearer, Janusz can see his tear-stained face clearly. He looks like he’s had a fall. His shorts are sticky with mud and his shirt is stained with green.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Janusz demands, but the child sinks his head into his stomach, fists banging against him.

  Janusz bends down. ‘What is it? What’s happened? Why are you covered in mud? Aurek? Tell me. Has someone hurt you? Who hurt you? Where’s your mother?’

  What Aurek has to say knocks the breath out of Janusz.

  ‘I don’t understand. Say it again. Slowly.’

  Aurek repeats the same story.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I saw them.’

  Janusz lets go of the boy. He feels the blood rushing in his ears.

  ‘Are you coming in?’ Doris calls from somewhere in the house. ‘Do hurry up, the tea’ll get cold.’

  Janusz takes Aurek by the hand.

  ‘Don’t worry. Stop crying. Not a word. All right?’

  ‘The lad had a bit of a scare in a tree,’ he explains when they step into Doris’s front parlour. ‘Nearly fell, apparently.’

  Doris ruffles Aurek’s hair.

  ‘Where’s your mum, then?’

  ‘She’ll be back soon,’ explains Janusz. ‘He’s come home ahead of the others. Isn’t that right, son?’

  Janusz keeps a steady eye on Aurek, who says nothing. Doris gives Aurek a slice of bread and jam and his favourite toy tractor to play with. Janusz drinks brown tea and eats biscuits. He talks about gearboxes and spark plugs and how to dismantle four-stroke engines. And all the while, his own heart creaks and stutters, like an engine that’s sprung an oil leak.

  ‘I think I’ll take the boy home,’ he says, standing up.

  ‘Tell your Sylvie to give him a bath when she gets back,’ says Doris. ‘He’s muddy as a dog in winter.’

  Janusz doesn’t bother to wash the mud off Aurek. He puts Aurek to bed in his clothes and tells him to stay in his room. The child strokes his hand, and Janusz kisses him lightly on the forehead.

  ‘We’ll be right as rain. Don’t worry. Now, you get some sleep and I’ll be downstairs.’

  He doesn’t know what to do, so he stumbles into the garden and begins t
o weed the beds. That is what he tells himself he is doing, but he keeps breaking flower heads and treading on favourite plants. He is clumsy and careless, but it feels good to crush petals and green stems underfoot.

  What a fool he is. It’s probably been going on for months. He never once thought that Silvana could do something like this. How could he have been so blind?

  He tries to pull up a dock weed, but its roots are stuck hard in the soil and he steps back onto a clump of his favourite irises, grinding them under his heel. One thing he is sure of: she won’t take his son away. Tony will not bring up his son.

  ‘You all right?’ Gilbert is looking over the fence. ‘Jan? You OK, mate?’

  ‘I’m very well,’ says Janusz.

  ‘Your missus home yet?’

  ‘No. But I’m expecting her. She’ll be back soon, thank you.’

  He bows slightly and turns to go into the house, flattening a bed of lady’s mantle as he goes.

  In the kitchen he searches out the bottle of wine Tony bought them. He’d like to throw it away but he needs a drink right now, and why not drink the man’s wine? He opens it, drinks a glassful and finds it tastes bitter. He pours the wine down the sink and stumbles outside again, down to his potting shed, where he sits on the floor and puts his head in his hands. The smell of pig iron from work clings to his skin.

  He looks up to see Gilbert standing over him.

  ‘Are you really all right?’

  ‘No,’ says Janusz. ‘I’m a bloody fool.’

  Silvana begs Tony to drive her home.

  ‘I have to find Aurek,’ she says. ‘I have to find him before he sees Janusz.’

  Tony stops at the bottom of the hill so that nobody will see her get out of his car. She says goodbye to Peter, who is sitting on the back seat, looking scared, the weight of what has happened that afternoon pressing on his shoulders, making him slump. He looks fatter than ever with his fists balled on his lap and his face swollen with tears.