by Annie Murray
‘Now . . .’ Piotr said, changing the tone. ‘Enough of Russia. Let us drink to this young man here. To little Michael!’
And gladly they all joined in.
The evening passed happily round the fire, talking, drinking and eating Christmas cake. Everyone took it in turns to play with Michael. Katie had given him half a dozen Dinky cars, which he found endless fun in roaring around the floor with. Marek played the piano and after a while called to Agnieska and Piotr to dance, so they got up and showed the others some Polish dance steps. Katie was struck by the seriousness with which they danced. She was sure if it had been her she would have collapsed into giggles. Edna and Susan clapped their hands to the music, loving it all, and when Katie’s eyes met Sybil’s – she had passed round a bottle of port and was still nursing her thimbleful– Sybil gave her a wink. Her lips were turned up, and Katie could see she was relishing it all. Katie watched Marek as he played the jaunty dance tune on the piano. She longed to go and kiss the back of his neck. She was so enjoying this evening too, but at the same time how she longed to be alone with him, so that they could look deep into each other’s eyes and talk and talk.
Fifty-Eight
By ten o’clock everyone was flagging. Katie had carried an overtired Michael up to bed, and now the Arbuckles said they would be off. Agnieska immediately said she would go too.
‘You don’t have to,’ Edna said.
‘No – we don’t want to break it up!’ said Susan. ‘You stay with your brother, if you want to.’
‘I like to go to sleep,’ Agnieska told them, and she did indeed look exhausted. ‘Goodnight – and thank you so much!’
Katie was touched by the fact that Agnieska leaned down and kissed her cheek after hugging her brother and Piotr.
‘Oh – goodnight. I hope you sleep well,’ Katie said. ‘And happy Christmas!’ She was already very fond of Agnieska.
‘Time for me to hit the hay as well, I think,’ Sybil said, after all the thank-yous and departures. ‘You can stay down here, if you like – put another log on the fire. But I’m all in.’ Sybil was sagging. For the first time, almost, Katie took in that she was quite elderly. Even with her rheumatism she seemed to get so much done normally.
‘Thank you for a lovely day, ‘Katie said, kissing her cheek. ‘This is the nicest Christmas I’ve ever had.’
‘Oh . . .’ Sybil brushed off the thanks. ‘Well, I’m glad. Pleasure. Right – goodnight all. Happy Christmas to you again.’
‘Thank you, Miss Routh – Happy Christmas!’ Marek and Piotr called to her. ‘Thank you!’
It went quiet suddenly, as if all the energy had gone. Marek reached for a log and threw it into the flames, where it crackled, sparks whirling up the chimney.
Piotr sat back and stretched, arms above his head, giving a huge yawn. ‘I go to bed. I’m sleeping already.’
Katie and Marek both tried not to show that they were pleased he was going, and wished him goodnight. As the door closed behind him, they looked at each other and smiled.
‘Well . . .’ Marek said. They could hear Piotr’s footsteps going upstairs.
‘It’s been a lovely day. I feel so nice and warm and well fed.’
‘Oh yes.’ Marek shook his head. ‘It is just wonderful.’ He looked up as the door closed upstairs, then held his arm out to Katie. ‘Come here . . .’ He was in the nice big, comfortable chair by the fire.
‘Let me put the light out,’ she said. ‘It’ll be cosy.’
Marek pulled her onto his lap and they snuggled up comfortably, Katie’s head resting on his shoulder, his arms close round her. She loved the way he held her very tight, as if she was utterly precious to him. She reached up and kissed his cheek, and he looked down at her.
‘You are so lovely,’ he said. ‘You are gift from God.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that!’ she laughed. She stroked her palm across his cheek, bristly and lean, loving the feel of him, his heartbeat a gentle rhythm against her ribs. He reached down and they kissed, and she caressed the back of his neck.
‘I’ve been dying to kiss you all afternoon,’ she said, and Marek laughed.
‘Yes – I have the same feeling.’
‘Agnieska seems well – she’s settling in.’
‘Yes, it’s good. She is OK. She feels better.’
‘It must be so nice, having someone from your family with you now.’
Marek smiled. ‘Umm – it’s good.’
‘Marek?’ she said after a moment. ‘Will you tell me? At least some of it? I keep hearing little bits – what you said about your sister’s hair, and what Piotr told us today. I don’t know anything; I don’t even know where those places are, or what happened. Or about your family, and I haven’t known whether I should ask or not. I do want to know – about you, my darling. About all of it. And we shouldn’t keep secrets from one another.’
Marek breathed in, then out, very hard. ‘I know – I should speak about it. But it is easier now we are here, in England, not to think about it. To push it away. I just tell you because it is right that you know me. And I think if I do not talk, it will rot inside me.’
She could feel, by the way he was breathing more deeply, that this was already a struggle. She nodded, waiting, settling her head on his shoulder, one hand on his chest.
‘Just start off,’ she encouraged him. ‘And see how you get on.’
‘Well, from the beginning of things . . .’ He paused. ‘My town, our family town, is not very large – a lot of farmers live there. Maybe you call it a village. It doesn’t matter. It is outside the city of Lwow, to the west. My father was a teacher in the school – of chemistry. My mother also had been a teacher, before she married – of history. But then she was at home with the family. She likes to write stories – stories of the past.
Katie turned to look at him. ‘What were their names?’
‘Names – oh, Tomas, my father. Tomas Wozniak. And my mother, Genowefa Wozniak.’ His voice caught with emotion, saying their names, and he waited a few moments before going on. The names sank into her too. She wanted to ask so many things: What did they look like? Who do you take after – whose blue eyes are those? But she didn’t want to keep interrupting.
‘In the family we were five children, living. One boy they lost, he died before I was born. The eldest was Pawel – he was four years my senior. Then me, Marek. After that, my sister Ewa, two years younger, then Agnieska and finally Dorota – she was just eight years when the war began.’
Katie felt a chill come over her, listening to him. She knew he had had a big family, but hearing their names, they began to come alive. But until now, no mention of them. Where were they – what had happened? She sat very still, not wanting to distract him, holding one of his hands.
‘When the Germans came, first of all, for a week or so, there were non-stop tanks and lorries passing through, along the main road from the west. We could see it from our house. One day, some of them stopped and came to us. They said, “Your house is quite big – we like to stay here.” They speak in Polish language, quite polite. Of course we had to let them. My mother said never to take sweets from them – they might be poisoned . . . But of course we did! They were not poisoned, luckily. They shot some people in the village – they had a list. I remember hearing shots sometime.
‘Soon after, the Russians ratted on us. The Germans pulled back, and for weeks there were more tanks passing, and lorries and horses and carts, from the east this time. They were so poor, so shabby-looking, those Red Army soldiers – conscripts. They were eating raw potatoes. They took our house – with gun, not polite this time. They took over the village, taking everything, relieving themselves wherever they wanted . . . Horrible. Soon they took my father – not the soldiers in the house, but others who came. They were transporting the prominent people: teachers, intellectuals, doctors. To where, we did not know. We never saw him again.’
Katie felt a chill pass through her at this bald statement.
&nbs
p; ‘One morning in February – it was five a.m., dark, snow up to the waist – they came for us. I was . . . well, my father was not there of course, so I was the man of the house, if you like . . .’
‘But – what about your brother? You said you had an elder brother?’
‘Pawel, yes. But he was in the army. Polish army – we call it the Home Army. So he wasn’t there. We heard after a long time – almost by chance, when everyone is asking for news – that he was killed in western Poland, fighting the Germans, around about that time, I think.
‘God!’ she murmured. It was all too much for her to find any words.
‘That morning, the girls were screaming, and Russian soldier in long coat – his gun was pointing at my mother’s head. My sister, Ewa, shouted something and he hit her round the face with the back of his hand – his glove. Slap! She fell to the floor. They told us: Take what you can carry, take food, and put on the cart. We went to the railway station and eventually everyone – a big crowd of people – was put in the train. It was a train for animals – you know, cattle. We were many people in one truck: a hole in the middle of the floor for, well, for you to do your business. When someone wanted to go, people turned their backs, maybe held up a coat. It took six weeks, at least. It was winter; very cold. At night we all slept close together, family in a group. If you rested your head on the side of the carriage, your hair would freeze to it. A lot of people had to have their heads cut free, so there was hair left on the walls . . . People were sick. One lady had a baby in our truck. Can you imagine? When it was born there was no sound, no cry. The guards . . .’ He hesitated. ‘They take it and throw it out into the snow.’
Katie gasped, a hand going to her mouth.
‘All the dead, it was like this . . . Not much food, not much water . . . So, we are taken to the north, to a place in Russia near Archangelsk, to a camp for logging.’
‘Logging?’
‘Of course. They need wood for everything: for railway, for building – all these barracks, huts for their slave labour, for one thing – everything they make, they have the whole of the taiga forests. I was sent with the men. We cut the trees. The women and children gather branches, and my mother had some cooking work. I see them at night. Again, little food. Soup is just cabbage water. People are getting very sick – some have chicken blindness, I think they call it beri-beri. Some of the men, when the sun started to go down, we had to guide them back to the huts because they went blind; they are stumbling, falling.
‘We all survived that together, by God’s grace. Then came the amnesty. Amnesty . . .’ He repeated the word with bitter contempt. ‘As if we were criminals. The Germans had attacked Russia – you remember, in 1941? So suddenly their great friendship is off, and Russia is comrades with Poland again. So, they decide we can go. Can you imagine?’
He stopped and drew in a big breath, letting it out slowly.
‘Oh, it is a long story. It took us some time to get out – I was almost going alone, I was young and impatient – me and some other boys and girls. But my mother said: No, you wait, we stay together. We have to get rail permit to go south. In the end we left the camp. For days we walk, my sister Ewa was very sick, pain in head, fever. After days we come to railway. There were many of us on the train. No one knows anything, except we are told there will be a new Polish army. We make a long journey south. Trains, barges, trucks, walking. Even donkey and camel.’ Kate felt his chest move in laughter for a moment.
‘It was chaos, Russia – the Russians didn’t know what they were doing. Finally they hand us all over to the British, when we got south, in Uzbekistan. Here we are told that for sure there will be a Polish Army Corps gathered out of those freed from the camps. Our General, Anders, they let him out of Lubyanka prison in Moscow and he came to command us. I was old enough – eighteen by this time. I decided to join. But for some time everyone would be travelling together: the army and also women and children, everyone. We went to Tashkent where there was a camp. This is very bad time – there was no food, almost, eating worms from the ground. And you know what else we could eat sometimes? Turtles – big ones, we boiled them – and storks. They make their nests high up, but there were no high buildings, so they nested in the trees. We would go and lift them by the neck. But this is not often, of course. We were hungry and many people sick, thin like insects, dying. I was worried about my mother. After all the camp, the journeys, all she had suffered, her health was very bad; she was weak. We did not know where was my father – she had to do everything alone. And Agnieska got very sick – typhus, as we told you.’
‘And you – did you get sick?’
‘Oh yes, like everyone – dysentery. Some typhus. But I was strong. And by the time we were moving on to Iran, I was in a separate place – with the army. My baby sister, Dorota, she got a bad fever and she died on the way. Agnieska and Ewa, they sat and held her, their dead sister, while our mother went to try and find a way to bury her. But how could she? She had no tool, no . . .’
‘Shovel?’
‘Yes, shovel – she had nothing. So they had to put her in a grave with others – many others together.’ He continued quickly. ‘Somehow, along the way, Ewa became separated from the others. I think because she was so sick. Agnieska says she cannot remember the time – she had a fever also. So Agnieska is left with my mother, and they all cross the Caspian Sea to Iran, to be put in a camp on the beach. The journey is very difficult: the heat is terrible. When they reach the place – it is Pahlavi, the name, I think – my mother is so weak, so sick. Many are sick, and their bones sticking out. After three days she opened her eyes for the last time. I think her heart is broken as well as her strength.’
‘So poor Agnieska was left all on her own?’
‘Yes. No one else of my family. There was no sight of Ewa. But others looked after her. After some time everyone was sent out to other camps – she was first in India some years, then East Africa: Uganda. She speaks Swahili language, you know! Then from there they come here.’
‘And what about Ewa?’
‘We don’t know. Still we are trying to find out. But I do not have a big hope.’
Katie was struggling to take all this in. ‘And you: where were you, Marek?’
‘They took us first to Palestine for training. The Jewish boys thought their dreams had come true. They didn’t want to leave, and they stayed to fight there. Then we went to Italy, all the way up to Monte Cassino. We get our hands on the Germans! Along the way I met Piotr and together we go on. Then – here. Here I am.’
‘Oh, Marek . . .’ She looked into his face. She felt powerfully tender towards him, but what he had told her was so terrible, so immense. She didn’t know how he could bear the grief of it all. All she could do was hold him, kissing his face.
After a long silence she said, ‘All your family. You’ve lost so much.’
‘It was the same for everybody,’ he said. By his detached way of talking she understood that he could not go into the emotions – it would be too much. ‘Talk to any of the Poles – it is the same.’
‘Piotr?’
‘Yes. All dead. In Siberia.’
Katie made a sound of distress.
Marek gently took her hand. ‘We have to make a new life.’
‘Can you really not go back to Poland?’
‘We had one friend – he was determined to go back. He said he would write and tell us when it was safe. We never heard another word from him. The Russians own my country now.’ His voice was very bitter. ‘Soviets. Reds. They are in charge – no one says no to Papa Stalin, it seems. Not the British, the Americans: no one. Poland has been smashed apart. You know, they have moved the borders west – by about a hundred and fifty miles? So, my home is now in Ukraine – no home for us any more. We are all . . .’ He made a scattering motion with his free hand.
He looked into her eyes. She could just see the dying flames reflected in his.
‘You have to understand – my country has had many differen
t borders before this war. Many wars before, fighting, people occupying this land and that. And so many hatreds: Ukrainians hate Poles as they were given their land; Lithuanians in the north hate us, as we took Wilno; some people hating Jews for reasons of wealth and religion, some Jews hating us . . . We are a quarrelsome country – but now, it has been a funeral pyre. And we are occupied by Russia . . .’
He stopped, gave a heavy sigh. ‘Some people here – Poles, I mean – can’t accept. One day they will go back, they say. Poland will be free. But I don’t know. Everything is broken. All I can do is go forward, not thinking of the past too much. We are here. We have to make a home somehow.
They were both silent. The fire shifted.
‘Katie?’ Gently he stroked back her hair, leaving his big, warm hand on her head. She heard anxiety in his voice and turned to him.
‘Thank you.’ She turned her head and kissed the delicate skin of his wrist. ‘Thank you for telling me.’
‘Dear Katinka . . .’ he lowered his hand and his eyes searched hers. ‘You are like home to me, and a new life. Will you stay with me and we make a life together? Will you be my wife?’
She moved nearer, until their faces were very close, in the darkness. Their noses were almost touching.
‘You are my home too,’ she said. There was nothing – no one – she wanted but this. ‘Yes, my darling Marek – I will.’
XIII
MOLLY
Fifty-Nine
February 1949
‘There’s a letter for you, Miss Fox.’
As soon as Molly got through the front door, blowing on her frozen hands, her landlady Mrs Hodgkins came sliding out of her room on the ground floor. Her husband was a sick man and she always moved with an air of trying not to wake somebody. She was holding out a white postcard.
‘I thought I’d better take it in for safekeeping,’ she said.
‘Oh – thank you.’ Molly took it and went up the bare staircase to her room.
