Spring Will Be Ours

by Sue Gee

  Stefan stared at her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said Poland’s under martial law. It was on the seven o’clock news. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry …’ She reached out towards him, but he didn’t take her hand.

  ‘Is the news on now?’

  ‘No, it’ll be on again at eight.’

  ‘What did he say? What’s happened? Quick!’

  ‘Just … that there’ve been arrests, it must have all happened in the middle of the night. He … he said all the phones are cut off.’

  Stefan flung back the bedclothes. ‘Excuse me – I have to try …’ He went quickly to the phone, not bothering with the dressing gown, and picked up the receiver. She saw him begin to dial, then he put down the receiver, and turned to look at her. ‘You want to make some tea?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes, of course.’ She got out of bed, shivering, and picked up the warm wool dressing gown. She tried to give it to him as she passed, but he was already dialling again, and didn’t look up. She left it hanging on the chair behind him.

  Out in the kitchen, she switched on the gas under the kettle and stood leaning against the stove, trying to get warm, and listening. She heard Stefan dial, and wait, and put down the receiver and dial again, and again, and again. He slammed down the phone and called out: ‘International operator – what’s the number? Where do I find the number?’

  She hurried back and searched for the code book, among the papers, then on the bookshelves, all the time hearing him dial and dial, and finding it at last tucked between the directories on the floor. She flicked through the pages.

  ‘You just dial 100 and ask for Freefone BTI.’ She wrote it down.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He dialled it, and she went back to the kitchen, thinking: If Stefan were mortally wounded, he would still be polite to his friends. She waited to hear him get through, but the kettle came to the boil and she heard the receiver slam down again. She made tea, suddenly remembering Elizabeth in this kitchen, in the summer, saying so lightly: ‘Life is cruel’, and then Stefan was in the room, wearing the dressing gown, looking rumpled and pale.

  ‘I can’t get through. I mean not to the operator, either. Every bloody Pole in the country must be trying.’ He put his hand over his eyes.

  Ewa went over and put her arms round him. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again.

  He shook his head. ‘We must listen to the next bulletin, okay?’

  ‘Of course. Tea’s made.’ She felt like a wife, comforting. ‘Shall we take it back to bed?’

  ‘Sure, sure.’

  She put the things on a tray, and they went back into the large, cold room. ‘Here.’ Ewa gave him the tray and went to light the gas fire. She heard the cups rattle violently, and got up to see Stefan just standing there, about to drop the tray. She ran.

  ‘Come on, come back to bed, you’re shocked, come on, darling, I’ll look after you…’

  She took the tray, and put it on the desk, and led him across the room. She helped him into bed, and arranged the pillows, and drew up the bedclothes, and then poured him tea, and helped him to drink it. After a while, the colour came back into his face, and she climbed in beside him.

  Dawn was breaking. They sat propped up on the pillows, drinking tea, and waiting for the eight o’clock news.

  The hotel dining room was open for breakfast from seven every morning. It was a large, hideous room, acres of patterned carpet beneath pale brown tables with rounded corners and spindly legs, and chairs with plastic seats. It was lit, first thing in the morning, by dull blocks of neon; in the evenings, there were wall lamps, clinging to embossed and patterned paper. Danuta had twelve tables to look after; even in winter there were tourists, especially now, in the lead-up to Christmas, and businessmen, and couples. Beyond the swing glass doors was the foyer, brightly lit; beyond the swing fire doors at one end of the room were the kitchens. Danuta came out of the kitchens, carrying a tray of bacon, eggs and tomato for four, and set them down on the table at the side, by the coffee machine. She filled coffee cups for four, and carried them, and then the breakfasts over to the table where four men in suits, from somewhere outside London, sat trying to make jokes and conversation. They brightened as she approached.

  ‘That’s more like it. Oooh, I needed that. That’s a good girl.’

  Danuta smiled, setting out cups and plates. The tips could be good from the men, though no one really bothered to tip much at breakfast. The work was far easier than being a chambermaid, but she wasn’t making much. The restaurant in Covent Garden was doing wonderful business at the moment, though, even if it did mean staying very late, and getting a taxi home. She smothered a yawn, putting down the last cup of coffee.

  ‘You would all like toast?’

  ‘We would, my dear. If that’s all right with you.’

  She smiled again, wondering how they talked to their wives. ‘Of course.’ She took the empty tray back to the kitchen. Amidst the clatter of dishes, the breakfast chef was cracking eggs on to the griddle, flipping them with a slice and singing to Radio One. Radio One was always on in here; it had been in the last hotel, too. ‘Ra-dio One!’ was one of the first things she’d picked up: it used to ring in her head as she yawned her way through breakfast; now it was just part of the background. Over the last couple of weeks, talk of Poland and Solidarity had been part of the background, too, in the news bulletins – a lot had been happening. In the first days of December, helicopters had landed on the roof of the Fire Officers’Academy in Warsaw, occupied for days by cadets trying to press the government to ‘demilitarize’the college. A thousand riot police had stormed the building, evicting them with a brutality worse than at Bydgoszcz. Wałęsa had put the whole union on strike alert, then, but the last thing he’d said, a couple of days ago in Gdańsk, had been: ‘We do not want confrontation.’

  Danuta had listened to most of this in a blur. She had saved and saved, and spent every hour of free time shopping, and packing an enormous parcel to send home for Christmas, sending it off just before the last date. She tried not to think of the reality of Christmas for her parents without her, or of herself, here, probably working, without them. All the Polish girls were planning to spend Wigilia together, perhaps going out to a Polish restaurant, or maybe Basia’s Frenchman would let her have them back to his Knightsbridge apartment.

  ‘And I’m saving a lot,’ Danuta had told her mother on the phone last Sunday. ‘I’ll be able to come home next spring, I’m sure, for a visit, or you could come here, I’ll be much more settled by then.’

  ‘Wait and see,’ said her mother. ‘Don’t hope for too much.’

  ‘Do you think –’ she hadn’t wanted to ask it. ‘Are you all right, Mama? You don’t think anything –’

  ‘I don’t think anything,’ said her mother. ‘I just say again – don’t hope for too much.’

  Since then, Danuta had tried not to think anything, either. She’d phone Mama today, when breakfast was finished: now, she had twelve tables to look after. She heaped brown and white triangles of toast on to a plate; there were baskets of butter and marmalade and mixed fruit jam in little packets with peel-off tops. The men in suits probably saw a lot of those. She covered the plate with a napkin, and made her way to the swing doors.

  ‘Ra-dio One! And the latest news, on the half hour. A state of emergency has been declared in Poland. The country’s leader, General Jaruzelski, said the country was at the edge of an abyss …’

  Danuta stood stock still, holding the plate of toast. Then the swing doors were flung open, and one of the English waitresses sang out:

  ‘Egg and bacon twi-ice! And one with beans.’

  ‘Sssh!’ said Danuta. ‘Listen!’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘The news … the news …’ She began to cry.

  ‘Here, give us the toast…’

  ‘… It’s thought a number of Solidarity leaders have been arrested – and at the moment the whereabouts of the Union’s leader, Lech Wałesa, ar
e not known …’

  ‘Is it something about Poland, then? Carlo, turn that radio up, will you?’

  ‘All the telephone links with the outside world have been cut off, and within the country itself …’

  ‘Oh, my God, I don’t believe it. I must try … Can you look after my tables …’

  Danuta pushed through the swing doors, and out into the foyer. She wasn’t supposed to use the phone booth on duty, ever, and off duty she wasn’t supposed to stay on for more than a few minutes, in case guests needed it. She didn’t care. She ran over to the girl on the newspaper desk.

  ‘Please – can you lend me some change, just for a few minutes? For the phone? It’s very urgent.’

  The girl turned from the rack of postcards. ‘How much do you want?’

  ‘A pound or two, in tens. I’ll pay you back, but …’ She was crying so much she couldn’t explain about her bag being locked in her room downstairs.

  ‘Here …’ The girl rang up twenty pence on the till. ‘That’s for a paper, all right, pay me back, or I’ll be short. Are you all right?’

  Danuta shook her head. ‘Just – the money, please.’

  The girl counted out two pounds in tens; Danuta ran across the foyer to the booth by the door. She stood in it, crying and dialling, and waited. A high-pitched single tone. She dialled again. The same, dead, horrible sound. She thought of her parents, waking up to discover the streets full of armed police, not able to phone, worrying about her worrying. She tried once more, then banged down the receiver, and leaned against the side of the phone booth, sobbing. She felt herself begin to panic. Suppose I can never go back. Suppose I never see them again. I should never have come, never. I’ll be a skivvy here for the rest of my life, and my parents will die without me.

  ‘Hey, hey, come on, love, what’s up?’ The girl from the desk was patting her arm. ‘Come on, come on.’

  ‘Poland … Poland is under martial law. I can’t get through, no one can get through, it’s all cut off …’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing. Come on, let’s get away from here, okay, there’s people looking …’ She led Danuta into the Ladies’, where she cried and cried.

  ‘Come on, cheer up, it can’t be as bad as all that. What’s happened exactly?’

  ‘Poland has been taken over, by the military, in the middle of the night, and I might never be able to go back. I want to talk to my mother …’

  The girl from reception gave her a box of tissues. ‘I expect it’ll be all right in the end, I’m ever so sorry. I must get back to the desk or they’ll kill me, all right? You stay here till you feel better.’

  Danuta blew her nose. ‘And I must get back to my tables.’ She splashed her face with water, and dried it on the roll-on towel. ‘Here …’ She gave the girl the money from the till. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘That’s all right. See you later, okay?’

  They went out into the foyer. In the kitchens, Danuta found the three other Polish girls, just on duty, crying, too. The chef flipped eggs, and regarded them.

  ‘Come on, you lot, you’ll have to pull yourselves together, there’s twenty-eight breakfasts!’

  Danuta, red-eyed, hurried out to the dining room, where the men in suits were waiting for more coffee.

  Anna drew back the curtains of the living room and looked out. It was grey and very cold, snow falling lightly on the rooftops, not thick enough to settle. Many of the curtains at the windows of the houses opposite were still drawn; on Sundays almost everyone slept in. In another week there would be Christmas trees in almost every window, lit up from first thing in the morning. Anna was going to buy theirs this week: she knew Jerzy and Elizabeth had their own, but Ewa didn’t usually bother, and to have everyone home for Wigilia without a tree was unthinkable – especially this year, with the wedding to celebrate. Only another few days. She wondered if Ewa wanted to bring Stefan to the wedding, if she wanted to bring him home for Wigilia. She liked Stefan, from their few meetings; it was impossible not to; but to think that he had a wife and child in Warsaw! However – to discuss that, or anything about him with Ewa was impossible. She had tried, once, and seen the familiar, unbreachable expression: I know what I’m doing, and no one is going to stop me – and given up.

  Anna went over to the next window, drew back the curtain and looked down the street. Even in winter, Dziadek and Babcia sometimes went to early mass; then walked home slowly along the uneven pavement, arm in arm, but she couldn’t see them now, and she hoped they hadn’t gone, it was much too cold. She went across the room and lit the fire. Above, on the mantelpiece, among the Christmas cards, was one from Wiktoria, the Solidarność logo cut out and pasted on. In the first, dramatic days of the Polish August last year, she had remembered standing in front of the Katyń memorial, and wondering: where is the spirit of Poland now? There was the answer.

  Anna went back to the kitchen, to make tea. Jan was still asleep, after working late: she usually left him to have his one rest of the week like everyone else – for herself, she could never sleep very late, and she liked the quietness of early morning, with no train to catch to work, no shopping to do. She made herself tea and toast, and went to sit by the fire.

  ‘Anna! Anna!’

  Babcia was calling, urgently rattling the letter box. Anna got up and hurried out to the hall; she opened the door and saw her frail little mother-in-law white and shaken on the doormat. It’s Dziadek, something has happened to Dziadek, she thought at once, and prepared herself.

  ‘You’ve heard the news?’

  ‘No?’ said Anna. ‘I’ve only just got up. What is it?’

  ‘There’s been … a crisis …’ Babcia burst into tears. Behind her, Anna could hear the radio, and then Dziadek appeared, pulling open their door very slowly, and standing there, absolutely still.

  ‘They have imposed martial law in Poland,’ he said slowly. ‘My wife is rather upset.’

  He spoke as if to a stranger, and for a moment Anna was so shocked by this that she could not take in what he had said. ‘Martial law …’

  ‘Warsaw is full of soldiers,’ Babcia sobbed. ‘The whole country is cut off from the rest of the world – can you imagine? Arrests in the night … it is the Gestapo all over again. We must warn Jan …’

  ‘Warn Jan … Mama, he’s here, he’s asleep, come on inside, both of you, come in, I’ll wake him.’

  She led them slowly into the living room, and sat them down by the fire. They were both in their Sunday clothes. She made them tea, went to the cupboard and took out a small bottle of brandy. She poured a good nip into each cup, and took it through.

  ‘Here … This’ll help.’

  They sipped, shaking their heads, moving closer to the fire.

  ‘I never, never really believed that this would happen,’ Babcia said. ‘It is like hearing of a death. Worse.’

  Dziadek said nothing. He sat holding his cup and saucer and staring at the popping gas fire. Anna watched them and thought: They are two creatures washed up on the shore. She got up and patted their shoulders, kissing Babcia on the cheek.

  ‘I’ll go and wake Jan, all right? You stay here. You’ll feel better in a little while.’

  Babcia nodded uncertainly, and Anna went out and along to the bedroom. And what will become of Stefan now, she wondered. And his poor wife, and my poor daughter. She felt suddenly so angry she wanted to kick the wall, and shout – and then she thought of telling Jan, and wished she could be telling him almost anything but this.

  She went into the bedroom, which was still dark. She stood by the bed, seeing him in the crack of light through the curtains so deeply asleep, so tired, in sleep more profoundly lost to her than ever. She thought of how since last summer he had followed the news from Poland, for a while more interested than he had been for years in anything. He had sometimes mocked – Solidarity’s demands were endless, their politics naive, the young ‘Poles from Poland’over here, like Stefan, were riding on a bandwagon – but he had changed. He still came home late,
but he talked when he came home, and he talked to the children when they did. He had come alive.

  Anna slowly drew back the curtains, and saw the fine snowflakes whirling wetly on to the railway line. Then she turned back to the bed, and sat on the edge, and gently shook her husband’s shoulder.

  ‘Jan? Jan? Wake up.’

  He turned, and woke instantly, as if on duty.

  ‘What is it? God, what time is it, Anna?’

  ‘It’s just after nine – ssh, I know you wanted to sleep, but – but I’m afraid there’s been some bad news. Your parents came in, they heard it on the radio …’

  Jan sat up, frowning. ‘They’ve invaded. They’ve invaded.’

  ‘No, no – but almost. The country’s under martial law, a takeover in the middle of the night. That’s all I know, I haven’t heard it.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘Your parents are very shaken, I think they’re a little better now, your mother was talking about the Gestapo, as if we were all still under the occupation – she wanted to warn you …’ She was babbling, gabbling, she could hear herself, waiting for the shutters to come down.

  The phone began to ring, and she jumped. ‘I’d better answer it, the parents aren’t in any fit state … I’ll bring you some tea in a minute.’

  ‘I don’t want any.’ He lay back on the pillows, and he looked as though someone had drawn a black sheet of silk over his face. Anna watched him, hesitating, and the phone went on ringing.

  ‘I’ll come back.’

  He didn’t answer. She heard the phone being lifted, and Babcia saying hesitantly: ‘Słucham? Jerzy?’ and she hurried out of the room, and went to talk to him.

  Ewa and Stefan were walking to the Embassy. It was bitterly cold, thin snowflakes settling briefly on their faces as they went quickly under the Christmas lights past the closed shops in Oxford Street, where the models in winter coats and skiing clothes stared out, unsmiling. They had caught an empty train from Blackheath, and walked from Charing Cross along streets which were almost deserted: they passed a figure huddled in a doorway; lit-up buses with a few stray passengers went by, and taxis, speeding.