Magda's Daughter (22 page)

She bit her lip. ‘Yes.'

‘If you like, I will take a note to them tomorrow and explain why you are here. The Niklas family put the cross on Adam Janek's grave. They have more right than anyone to decide whether or not your mother's ashes should be buried with him.'

‘I think I should have a say in the matter too, as it was my mother who paid for the memorial.'

‘Don't you think it might be better to try the tactful approach first?' he suggested mildly.

‘I suppose so,' she conceded ungraciously. ‘And if they say yes?'

‘I'll check to make sure no one in the village has any objection. If they don't, I'll open the grave and arrange a ceremony.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Don't thank me yet. I haven't done anything and, as the decision isn't mine to make, I may not have a say either way. It might be as well if you consider an alternative resting place for your mother's ashes in case the family or the villagers refuse to allow you to bury them in the churchyard.'

‘They may refuse me permission to bury them in Adam Janek's grave but they can hardly refuse to allow me to bury them in the churchyard. Not if I bought another plot.'

‘Have you looked around the churchyard? There isn't an inch to spare.'

‘There must be room somewhere. My mother's casket isn't very large.'

‘All the plots belong to local families.'

Tired of trying to find answers to problems that seemed insurmountable, Helena said, ‘I suppose I could scatter them somewhere, but I don't want to think about that unless I have to.' She sighed. ‘What should I say in my note?'

‘That is entirely up to you. But I advise you to keep it short and simple. And don't sign yourself Helena Janek. That alone would be enough to give any Niklas a heart attack.'

Careful to observe every rule of Polish grammar that Magda had taught her, Helena eventually wrote:

Dear Uncle Wiktor,

I am Magdalena Janek's daughter, and I have brought my mother's ashes back to the village so she can be buried m the grave of her beloved husband Adam Janek. She talked constantly about him and their wedding, and she loved him until the day she died.

I would very much like to meet you, my aunt and my grandmother. My mother told me so many stories about you and what it was like to grow up in the village. I hope you will allow me to call and see you. I have given this note to Josef Dobrow to deliver because he thought it might be too much if a shock for you to see me unannounced. Looking forward very much to receiving your reply.

Helena bit the end of the biro and stared down at the coarse-grained paper in the exercise book Josef had given her to write the note. How could she sign herself? ‘Love Helena' would be too much, and it wasn't just the Janek part of her name she couldn't use. Helena Janek was buried in the churchyard.

In the end she settled for
With all good wishes, your niece.

Chapter Twelve

‘Why didn't you come and tell me you'd returned from your walk?'

Ned walked out of the back door of the bar and confronted Helena, who was sitting on the bench beneath the staircase. Josef had switched on an outside lamp, and she looked pale and tired beneath the glare of the single, naked bulb.

‘Because I've only just got back. What on earth have you been doing? Your face and clothes are filthy.'

‘Didn't Josef tell you? I took over his chores here so he could go and find you. And don't try to tell me you weren't with him.'

‘Why should I deny it?' She stared at him in amazement. ‘You're jealous!'

‘Do I have reason to be?'

‘I can't cope with this on top of everything else.' She looked down at the note she'd written to her uncle. Unable to think of anything else to say, she tore the sheet from the exercise book and folded it.

‘Cope with what? My concern?' he challenged. ‘You storm off –'

‘I told you I was going for a walk.'

‘You wouldn't allow me to go with you.'

‘So you sent Josef to get me.' She didn't know why they'd started shouting at one another, but now she couldn't stop.

‘I was afraid you'd get lost.'

‘I'm a grown woman, Ned, not a child. And you're being ridiculous.'

‘Am I?' he demanded testily. ‘We're in a strange village in a foreign country –'

‘It might be foreign to you. But my mother lived half her life here and I speak the language. ‘

‘And everyone in the village goes out for a walk at this time of night just in case a foreign tourist decides to ask directions?'

‘Sarcasm as well as jealousy, Ned? What's got into you?'

He placed his hand on the table to steady himself. ‘Josef told me that you walked to the Niklas house.'

She looked up at him defiantly. ‘I did.'

‘We could have gone there together.'

‘When, Ned? You didn't want to go earlier.'

They both fell silent when Josef walked into the yard with two bottles of beer and two glasses. He set them on the table. ‘These are on me. You did a good job of stacking the bottle and crates, Ned.'

‘Thank you.' Ned picked up a glass and a bottle. ‘But I didn't have much choice.'

‘Anna can be a slave-driver.' Josef turned to Helena. ‘Have you written your note?'

‘Yes, in my best Polish.' She unfolded it so he could read it.

‘I'll take it to the Niklas house first thing in the morning.' He slipped it into his pocket.

‘Thank you.'

‘I have to help Anna but I'll see you at breakfast. And thank you again for stacking those crates, Ned.'

Helena left the table as soon as Josef returned to the bar. ‘I'm going to bed.'

‘If you hang on I'll come with you.' Ned held up the second bottle of beer. ‘Aren't you going to drink this?'

‘I don't want it.'

Ned watched her go. Picking up both bottles and the glasses, he went into the bar. Josef was serving behind the counter. Ned sat at a corner table watching the locals play chess, wondering what he was doing in a dirt-floored bar in a remote area of Poland. Not helping Helena, that was certain. But since Magda had died he hadn't even been able to talk to her.

He finished both beers, took the bottles and glasses to the counter, said goodnight to Josef, and went upstairs. Helena was in the bed nearest the door, her face turned to the wall. He sensed she wasn't asleep but he undressed, slipped on his pyjama trousers, took his toilet bag and went down to the washhouse in the yard. She was in the same position when he returned. He crept in beside her. She kept her back resolutely towards him. When he drew close to her she moved away. He risked resting his hand lightly around her waist but she shrugged it off.

Exhausted by their argument and her rejection, he left the bed, climbed into the second one, and closed his eyes.

Ned woke with a start. The room was in darkness but he knew Helena wasn't in bed. He switched on the lamp at the side of his bed and saw her sitting, wrapped in a blanket, on one of the chairs. He went to her.

‘Can I do anything?'

She shook her head, but tears glistened on her lashes.

‘Come back to bed?'

‘I will in a little while. Please leave me alone.'

Ned lifted his hand, intending to stroke her hair from her eyes. But something held him back. He turned back to the bed and climbed into it, wishing he could think of some way, any way, to help her.

When Ned next woke, the attic room was warm, bright and empty. He took his wristwatch from the bedside table and looked at it. Seven-thirty. Helena was nowhere to be seen. Her bed was made and her duffle bag gone. Grabbing his clothes and toilet bag, he ran halfway down the outside staircase before remembering Josef's advice about keeping the door locked when they weren't in the room. He returned, locked the door, went down into the yard, washed and dressed. There was still no sign of Helena, or anyone else, when he left the wash-house.

He returned to their room, made his bed and checked around.

As well as the duffle bag, Helena's cardigan had gone. Hoping she was having an early breakfast and not another walk with Josef, he headed back down into the yard.

Helena was sitting at the outside table with Stefan. Anna was clearing her cup and plate. As the cup was half full of coffee and there was untouched food on the plate, Ned suspected she had left the table the moment Helena had sat down. Breakfast was certainly plentiful. There were fresh bread rolls, Polish sausage, cheese, jam, butter, a pot of coffee and a jug of water on the table. Helena was drinking coffee, but there were no crumbs on her plate.

Determined to forget the disagreements of the day before, Ned smiled and said, ‘Good morning,' to Anna and her brother. Anna nodded, and Stefan gazed at him silently. He turned to Helena. ‘You were up early.'

‘I couldn't sleep, so I walked up to the churchyard again.' Helena moved her duffle bag beneath the bench so he could sit next to her.

‘Coffee?' Anna asked Ned in Polish, holding up the pot.

Ned nodded and smiled, making a mental note to learn the Polish for please and thank you, if nothing else.

‘Josef took my message to the Niklas farm early this morning,' Helena informed him.

Ned glanced at his watch. ‘It's only just eight o'clock now.'

‘They're early risers in the country. He went at six.' Helena poured herself a glass of water.

Ned helped himself to a bread roll and reached for the butter dish. ‘He hasn't returned?'

‘No.'

Anna and Helena held a brief conversation in Polish. Stefan smiled vacantly before filling a tray with the dirty breakfast dishes. Anna went into the house, and he followed her like a dog trained to walk to heel.

‘Anna told me to tell you to take as long as you like over breakfast,' Helena translated.

‘I hope you thanked her for me.' Ned forked a slice of cheese on to his plate.

‘I did.'

‘Aren't you eating?' He ventured, risking another outburst at the implied criticism.

‘I'm not hungry.'

‘You didn't eat anything at supper last night and hardly any of the chicken in the car yesterday. Carry on like this and you're going to make yourself ill,' he warned.

‘I'm too nervous to eat.'

‘Nervous about what?'

‘I'm not sure what I'll do if my uncle refuses to allow me to bury my mother's ashes in Adam Janek's grave.'

‘Wouldn't it be better to wait and see what he decides, before worrying about what to do should he refuse?'

‘Probably.' She started at the sound of conversation behind them. Josef entered the yard accompanied by a middle-aged man, whose hair and eyes were so dark he could have been a gypsy. Helena rose to her feet and looked anxiously at the man.

‘Helena, this is Wiktor Niklas. Wiktor, this is Helena John and her husband Ned.' The fact that Josef introduced them without mentioning the name Janek wasn't lost on Helena – or Ned, despite his lack of Polish. Helena also noticed that Josef had made no reference to her relationship to Wiktor.

‘Is the coffee hot?' Josef asked.

‘Yes,' Helena stammered, trying not to stare at Wiktor.

‘Please, Wiktor, sit down.' Ned pulled out a stool for their visitor in front of the place setting Anna had laid for him. ‘I'll get myself another cup and plate.'

Remembering her manners, Helena spoke to her uncle in Polish. ‘I am pleased to meet you, Mr Niklas.'

He nodded to her, without meeting her eyes. Then he took the coffee pot and poured himself a cup.

Josef returned. ‘Mr Niklas would like to see the photographs you have of your mother, Helena.'

‘Of course.' She left the table.

‘Where are you going?' Ned asked.

‘To our room to fetch the box of photographs. ‘

‘Stay there.' He rose to his feet and went to the stairs. ‘I'll get them for you. ‘

‘Bring down the bottle of brandy and the chocolates as well, please,' Helena called after him. ‘The large box from my suitcase.'

‘That won't leave us with much to give anyone by the way of presents,' Ned cautioned.

‘I know.'

After Ned left, Helena lifted her duffle bag on to her lap, removed her purse, opened it and showed Wiktor the same photograph she had shown Anna. ‘This is the last photograph that was taken of my mother.'

Wiktor looked at it for a moment. ‘She's not quite as I remember her, but there is enough of a similarity for me to recognise my sister Magdalena. How did she die?'

‘A brain haemorrhage. The doctors found old, healed fractures in her skull. It's possible they contributed to her death.'

‘Was she ill for a long time?'

‘No, she was never ill – well, hardly ever,' Helena continued, conscious that she was talking too quickly to cover her unease. ‘Only a few headaches, and coughs and colds in winter.'

‘You were with her when she died?'

‘No.' Helena felt the colour flooding into her cheeks when she recalled what she'd been doing while her mother lay dying in Father O'Brien's car.

‘She was alone?'

‘She was with a priest. He was driving her to a church Sunday school party; she was very active in our local Catholic church.' Helena wished she could stop the words from tumbling out.

‘A priest. He gave Magdalena the Last Rites?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then she was a good Catholic to the end.'

‘The Church was very important to my mother. She brought me up in the faith.' Helena expected Wiktor to make a comment on his own religious beliefs, but he didn't.

‘Josef tells me that you want to bury Magdalena's ashes in Adam Janek's grave?'

‘Yes.' Helena crossed her fingers beneath the table.

‘You had her body burned?'

‘I asked the priest to arrange a dispensation so my mother could be cremated. Everyone told me that it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to transport her body here from Britain.'

‘Magdalena told you that she wanted to be cremated and her ashes buried in Adam Janek's grave?' he questioned.

‘No, my mother never talked to me about her death, or where she wanted to be buried.' Helena couldn't lie, not with those dark, probing eyes, so similar to Magda's, watching her. ‘But she often spoke about Adam Janek and her childhood here. She used to say that it was the happiest time of her life.'

‘Yet she never returned.'

‘In her heart she never left.'

‘Did she ever tell you why she didn't come back here?' His face was stern, intractable, his features so fixed she found it impossible to read them.

‘No. But it is difficult to travel from Britain to Eastern Europe. You need visas –

‘I meant after the war, when other people who had been taken by the Germans to work in the Reich returned to Poland.'

‘Not really, other than to say that she thought there would be better opportunities for my education and future in Britain.' Magda's explanation sounded lame, and Helena wondered why she had never thought to question it before.

‘My sister paid to have you educated?'

‘I gained a scholarship and went to university on a grant from the British government.'

‘And how did my sister keep herself and you?'

‘She managed a cooked meat and pie shop in a market town in Britain, Wales, called Pontypridd. But she wrote to you –'

‘We received a few letters,' he interrupted.

‘She sent you parcels, food, clothes –'

‘Occasionally.'

Helena hadn't known what to expect from her mother's brother, but she certainly hadn't anticipated such cold, suspicious reserve.

‘My grandmother and my aunt –'

Again, he cut her short. ‘Here's your husband with the photo­ graphs.'

Ned walked down the stairs carrying the box of photographs in one hand, a bottle of brandy in the other, and the enormous box of chocolates tucked under his arm.

Helena took the brandy and chocolates from Ned and handed them to Wiktor. ‘These are for you, my grandmother and my aunt.' She set the photographs on the table.

‘I will give them to the family.' Wiktor set the gifts aside. Helena tried to forget ‘the family' instead of the ‘your family', opened the box and spread the photographs on the table. Wiktor stared at them for a long time before pointing to one that had been taken in Ned's house at Easter. ‘My sister looks happy.'

‘She did her best to accept and adapt to her life in Britain after the war,' Helena said guardedly.

‘And she went to mass every week.' He thrust his thumb down on a photograph of Magda with Father O'Brien.

‘Yes.' As it was obvious that the photographs had been taken in the company of the priest, Helena could hardly refute it, but she remained acutely conscious that she was in a Communist country.