Magda's Daughter (24 page)

‘You know my grandmother?' Helena asked eagerly.

‘I keep telling you, everyone here knows everyone else.'

‘What is she like?'

‘Ever since I can remember, she has seemed the oldest of the old women, probably because, like every widow here, she always wears black. But she and the other women who lost children during the war were always kind to me. Every time Anna sent me to the Niklas farm on an errand, Granny Niklas gave me something: a cake, a slice of pie, a piece of cheese.'

‘Did she ever talk about my mother?'

‘Not to me. She only ever mentioned her son Wiktor, daughter Julianna and her grandchildren, but that's hardly surprising, as they are the only ones I knew. But, enough about the village. Tell me about yourself. What do you intend to do after you have buried your mother here?'

Helena thought for a moment before answering. ‘I'd like to get to know my mother's family, especially my uncle, aunt and grandmother, and find out if my mother's childhood was as idyllic as she told me. But most of all, I'd like to know why she lied to me about being Adam Janek's daughter.'

‘The Niklas family won't be able to answer that last question.'

‘But they must know someone who was taken to Germany at the same time as my mother.'

‘That's something you can ask your uncle tomorrow.' He rose to his feet. ‘Much as I hate to leave this place, Anna will be looking for me to help her before too long. We should go and find old Henryk and talk to him about the gravestone.'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Why so reluctant, all of a sudden?'

‘Because I could sit here all day.'

‘Now you know the way, you can come back later.' When she didn't move he said, ‘Ah, the Polish part of you wants you to stay in this country.'

‘Possibly.'

‘But you have to go back to Britain to work?'

‘Not until September when I start a new teaching post.' She climbed to her feet, and took a last look at the lake.

‘You can't deny your blood heritage.'

Josef's words made Helena think of Alma. What had she said? ‘It's something in the blood. A bond between a person and their birth country that transcends logic. I can't explain it better than that. But what I do know is that no matter how hard an exile works to build a new life, how good that life is, or how cruel or hateful the government in their native country, people born behind the Iron Curtain will always feel as though they belong there and nowhere else.'

‘My father might not have been Polish,' she said.

‘But your mother was, and many people believe religious and mystical heritage is passed on through the maternal line. You should think about staying here, Helena. This country needs all the intelligent women and teachers it can get.'

‘But I'm married to Ned.'

‘Are you?'

She looked into Josef's deep blue eyes, and saw that he knew she wasn't.

Chapter Thirteen

‘So you are taking a new teaching post in September?' Josef said, breaking the silence, as he and Helena walked away from the lake.

‘Yes, in my old school.'

‘And you are happy about it?'

‘I was. But when I heard that I'd been given the job, I was living at home with my mother. She was pleased because teaching positions in Wales are scarce, and it meant that I could stay in my home town close to her.'

‘Does Ned teach in that school, too?'

Helena paused. ‘Ned is a doctor, not a teacher. He never tells people what he does when he first meets them.'

‘In case they bore him with details of their illnesses?'

‘You understand.' She followed him through the woods. ‘How old are the children you teach?'

‘From six to twelve years old, then they go to the secondary school in the town.'

‘A three-hour drive away?' she said in surprise.

‘They have a bus, and you can do your homework while you travel. I know because it's a journey I made for many years myself.'

‘How many teachers are in your school?'

‘You're looking at the entire staff.'

‘How many children are there?'

‘Only fourteen. Even now, nearly twenty years after the war, the population hasn't recovered from the German massacres and deportations.'

‘But fourteen children all of different ages and abilities, working on different things at different paces. It can't be easy to teach them.'

‘It's easier than working in the meat factory like my foster-father,' he said philosophically. ‘And we have interesting class discussions. The big ones help the little ones.'

‘What do you teach them?'

‘I imagine the same things that are taught in British primary schools: mathematics, spelling, grammar, literature, history, geography and languages. Russian first, then English and French. No one wants to teach or learn German. The war is too raw a memory.'

‘You're right – apart from the languages, the communist syllabus isn't so different from ours,' she agreed.

‘You don't teach your young children languages?' He was amazed.

‘We British are very insular. Our borders are the sea.'

‘Unlike the French, who teach their primary school children English and German.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because I spent a year studying French literature in Paris.'

‘The communists allowed you to do that?' It was her turn to be amazed.

‘The government paid for me to study there.'

‘So you could become a village schoolmaster?'

‘I will only be teaching in the village school for one more year, then I go the secondary school for two years, and then back to the university to teach education students. It's the socialist way. Work upwards from the bottom.'

Helena thought of her college tutors. Most had been theorists with no practical experience of teaching. ‘That's a good system.'

‘We think so. Here's old Henryk's house.'

‘Did he know my mother?' She saw the exasperated expression on Josef's face. ‘Sorry. I should know by now that everyone knows everyone in the village.'

‘Come on, I'll introduce you.' Josef opened a small wicket gate and they went into a garden. A wire chicken run was set back, well away from beautifully tended beds filled with cabbages, leeks, tomatoes, lettuce, peas and beans.

The door to the house was open and an old woman was sitting on the step shelling peas. She smiled, showing twin rows of toothless gums.

‘Wiktor said you'd be around, Josef. Is this the young English lady the whole village is talking about?'

‘Her name is Helena and she speaks excellent Polish, Olgan,' Josef warned.

Helena debated whether or not to call the elderly woman by her Christian name. She felt it would sound disrespectful if she did, but Josef hadn't mentioned her surname. In the end she settled for a simple, ‘Hello.'

Olgan took Helena's hand and shook it enthusiastically ‘Welcome. Henryk will be pleased to see you. You will have a cup of tea with us?'

‘We've only just had breakfast, thank you, Olgan,' Josef smiled, shaking his head.

‘Please, come in, make yourself at home. I will get Henryk.'

Helena entered the wooden house. The front door opened directly into a large room that served as kitchen, living and dining room in one. Just like the attic she and Ned had rented there was a plethora of embroidered cushions and cloths – on the large table, the backs of two easy and four upright chairs – as well as tapestries on the walls. Olgan indicated the two easy chairs on either side of the hearth, and Helena and Josef sat down. The heat was oppressive, which wasn't surprising as the fire was blazing. There was an appetizing smell of baking bread in the air.

‘It's my cooking day,' Olgan explained. ‘I will get Henryk. He is milking the cow.'

‘They run a farm at their age?' Helena asked when Olgan disappeared.

‘Smallholding,' Josef explained.

A few minutes later Olgan returned with her husband. Helena had never seen a man so bent and gnarled. He looked as though a summer breeze would flatten him, yet he was carrying a log almost as large as himself. He dropped it outside the door. Josef and Helena rose to meet him.

‘Helena, this is Henryk.'

The old man brushed his hand on the back of his trousers before taking hold of Helena's hand, lifting it to his lips and kissing it, cavalier fashion.

‘You know Wiktor Niklas has given Helena permission to bury Magdalena Janek's ashes in Adam Janek's grave, Henryk?' Josef checked.

‘Yes. It's a pity there are no Janeks left, but I suppose a Niklas is the nearest Adam Janek has left to a relative.' Henryk smiled at Helena, and his eyes disappeared, swallowed by wrinkles. ‘Wiktor called in earlier. He said you would give me the date of Magdalena Janek's death.'

Helena took the stub of pencil and scrap of paper he gave her, and wrote it down. ‘Would it be possible to put “beloved mother of HelenaË® below my mother's name and dates?'

Henryk shook his head. ‘There's only room for Magdalena's name and dates. And that's all Wiktor wants,' he added.

Helena bit her lip to stem the tears that started in her eyes. She was beginning to feel that by bringing her mother's remains to Poland, she was losing her a second time. This time to their Polish family, who, for whatever reason, were intent on excluding her.

‘I promised Wiktor that I would add Magdalena Janek's name today before the service tomorrow,' the old man added.

‘Thank you.' Helena didn't know why she was thanking Henryk. Again she had the feeling that people couldn't wait to be rid of her.

‘We must be going, Henryk. We'll see you tomorrow.' Josef rose and made his way to the door, Helena trailing behind him.

‘You can go on to Anna's. I want to visit the churchyard again,' Helena said when they reached the square. ‘There's something I want to check.'

‘I'll come with you.'

‘There's no need.'

But Josef followed her anyway, as she headed towards the church. She slipped the chain from the gate, and walked to the Janek plot. Then she stood and stared at Adam Janek's gravestone.

Adam Janek, born 21 January 1918, martyred for Poland 26 June 1943. A loving husband and father. Also his daughter, Helena Weronika Janek
. ‘Born 5 June 1943, martyred 26 June 1943.' She knelt before the cross and, using the nail of her little finger as a measure, traced out the amount of space that would be needed to put Magdalena Janek and her dates. There was definitely room for another line which could have read ‘beloved mother of Helena'.

‘There is room,' she murmured.

‘For another Helena?'

It was only then she realised that her mother's brother would never countenance the ambiguity of two Helena Janeks on a grave­ stone. Not after her visit here. Everyone would know what it meant.

‘I'm sorry, but it's what your mother's family want, Helena.' Josef wrapped his arm around her. Instinctively, without thinking what she was doing, she rested her head on his shoulder.

Ned walked through the open church gate, turned the corner and saw Helena and Josef standing, wrapped in one another's arms, in front of Adam Janek's grave. His first instinct was to run up to them, tear Helena away from Josef, and demand to know what they were doing.

Then he recalled how her love for him had seeped away since Magda's death. And how powerless he had been to prevent it.

He walked away before either of them could see him.

Ned was sitting at a table in the bar that gave him a prime view of the street when Josef and Helena returned. Helena glanced above the half-doors and saw him looking straight at her. Mindful of Anna's frequently repeated edict that women were not allowed in the bar, she pointed around the corner to the passage that cut through the house. Ned ignored her.

Josef touched her arm. ‘I have to work, but if you need me I will be in the yard or bar. ‘

‘Thank you for taking me to see old Henryk, and coming with me to the churchyard.'

‘It was my pleasure.' Josef entered the bar, nodded to Ned, and tied on his canvas apron before going into the yard.

By the time Helena had walked through the archway, Josef was hard at work, shifting crates of beer that had been delivered and stacking them in the barn. Helena climbed the outside staircase to the attic room. It was only when she stood in front of the door that she realised she didn't have the key.

She sank down on the wooden landing and leaned against the warm, stone wall. It was an hour short of midday, but the sun was relentless, and the yard stifling. Helena sat and watched Josef move crates. He was engrossed in his task, and she knew he wasn't aware of her presence.

She closed her eyes, turned her face to the sun and mulled over the events of the morning. For all her insistence that her aunt and grandmother must be too busy with farm work to see her, she knew Ned was right. Either they didn't want to see her or they didn't know she existed. And if it was the latter, her Uncle Wiktor wanted to keep it that way. But why?

She set her duffle bag down carefully, so as not to jar the box inside. Opening the roped top, she removed the box of photographs Ned had brought to the breakfast table. She gazed at the framed photograph of Magda and Adam Janek on their wedding day. After seeing the churchyard she could pinpoint exactly where they had been standing; to the right of the gate and the left of the church door. They looked so young, so happy, so hopeful … Who could have predicted their lives would be wrecked by war and tragedy so soon afterwards?

She returned the frame to her bag and flicked through the snap­ shots. She almost didn't need to look at them. She had studied them so often she only had to close her eyes to conjure the images.

She gazed at the earliest photograph of her that her mother had possessed. It was a close shot, so close that, if it hadn't been for the trees and imposing building in the background, it could have been taken in a studio. She was staring wide-eyed at the camera, her mother's distinctive embossed wedding ring clearly visible as she held her. But Magda's hands were the only part of her that could be seen. Helena had always thought it odd that her mother wasn't in the picture. When she had asked her why, Magda told her that the photographer had only wanted to take her.

But now she knew that Adam Janek couldn't possibly be her father, another reason came to mind. Her staunchly Catholic mother hadn't wanted to compound her ‘sin' by appearing with her illegitimate child in a photograph that might have made its way back to her family, friends and priest. Was she the product of an illicit love affair or rape? Love or lust? The only fact she could be certain of was that Magda had never married again, because she had kept the name Janek until the day she died an outwardly respectable widow.

Her mother had set great store by respectability. Whenever Helena had wanted to do something Magda disapproved of like wear mini-skirts, go for a drink in a pub with Ned, or stay late at a party her mother had always begun her lectures by saying, ‘What will people think? No decent girl would behave that way' and invariably finish with ‘in my day …'

She and Ned had constantly reminded her mother that it was the 1960s. Old morality was being thrown out of the window, and it was good riddance to a hidebound society that labelled an illegitimate child as a ‘product of sin', and unmarried mothers as ‘fallen women'. But could it be true? Were there sound reasons behind the Church's attitude towards children born outside marriage? Would she have to pay for the sin her mother and father whoever he was had committed? Did her illegitimacy lessen her worth as a person?

She recalled the strict moral principles inculcated in her during her education in the Girls' Grammar School, and imagined the gossip would arise if it became known that she had no claim to the name Janek, or even the Christian name Helena. That her entire life was based on a lie, her identity stolen from a dead baby. The headmistress and governors of the school would never have given her a position on the staff. They might have interviewed her politely enough, but would have looked down on her. Just like the children who had been born to unmarried mothers during the war, the ones who had been taunted and called GI bastards in the playground.

‘Enjoy yourself with Josef?' Ned was standing on the steps. The expression on his face chilled her despite the baking heat.

‘He introduced me to the stonemason,' she answered, aware that Josef was probably within earshot.

‘Really?' he queried sceptically.

‘We also walked to the lake. It's only a quarter of an hour from the square. It's beautiful. Quiet and still …'

‘And afterwards you went to the churchyard?'

‘Yes.' She realised that he had either followed her and Josef, or seen them there. ‘I asked the mason if he'd put “beloved mother of HelenaË®, but he said there wasn't space. I wanted to check for myself.'