Magda's Daughter (39 page)

‘Foolish, weak and not in need of a lecture.' Anna pulled the ashtray towards her, and took out her cigarettes. ‘Josef wants you to stay here.'

‘Did he tell you that?' Helena asked in surprise.

‘He didn't need to. It's written all over his face. Well, I don't want you.'

‘Why?' Helena asked.

‘Because I like my life the way it is. And you would make me feel uncomfortable in my own house. I daresay Josef told you that I need looking after because he will soon be taking a job in the town and won't be able to spend so much time here. As if I need a nursemaid!'

‘He is concerned about you, Anna.'

‘I don't need his concern. And I don't need you here because you would be a reminder of things that I have spent most of my life trying to forget. And whatever you may think, you don't belong here.'

‘Josef says I do,' Helena said quietly.

‘No doubt he told you that he loves you as well.'

‘Yes, he did,' Helena admitted.

‘It is because he is blinkered, like an old horse that knows the route it has to take so well it no longer needs to open its eyes to look at the road. Josef has only ever seen what he wants to. I know him inside out. He is my child in all but name.'

Helena had to ask the question. ‘Then Josef doesn't love me?'

‘Josef loves you well enough. Probably more than he loves any woman. But he loves something more – Poland. I have known many men like Josef and I have seen what being relegated to the position of second-best has done to their wives and families. Boys like Josef died in their millions during the war. Even Adam Janek, for all his protestations that Magda and Helena were his life, put Poland first, and look where that got him – an early grave with his daughter.

‘There was no excuse for a man with his money. He could have taken Magda north when he returned from fighting the German invasion. All he had to do was buy passage to Sweden on a ship out of Gdansk. He, Magda and little Helena could have sat out the war in comfort. Just as Josef could use his contacts to escape to the West, where he could put his brains and his talent to better use than the Communists will ever allow him to do here. But there's no talking sense to him. All he can think about is Poland and fighting to free her from the Soviet yoke – or some other such nonsense. So, to answer your question again: yes, he loves you, but not enough. The question is, do you love him?'

‘The Polish part of me does.'

‘What kind of an answer is that?' Anna scoffed.

‘The only one I can give.'

‘Josef would sacrifice everything for Poland – himself, his wife, his unborn children. Not like my Jerzy. He gave his life for Poland, but only because he had no choice. If he'd had money like Adam Janek he would have taken me somewhere quiet and peaceful, away from Poland and the fighting early on in the war. And if he were here now, we would live quietly and leave the politics to the Adam Janeks and Josef Dobrows of this world. You are lucky, Helena. You are living in a time where you can decide how and where to live your life. So, please, make the right choice. For yourself and for me.'

‘And Josef?'

‘He has his first love, Poland, to console him.'

Helena looked through the archway to the street outside. Thanks to Magda's descriptions she knew this village and its inhabitants almost as well as she knew Pontypridd and its natives. She felt at home here, but the village she knew was Magda's, a place of the past.

After the war Magda had made a brave choice to travel to a strange country where she only knew one person. Helena would never know whether she really intended to marry Bob Parsons. But clearly Magda had felt there was no future in Poland for either of them.

Ned loved her as much as it was possible for one person to love another – of that she was certain. And she had loved him before Magda had died and left her a legacy of doubt about her identity. She suddenly realised Ned was right: nothing had really changed between them. She was what she was: a girl who'd been brought up and educated in Wales to respect her Polish heritage.

The Polish side of her was attracted to Josef, and he loved her, in his way, as much as Ned did. But Anna understood him. Josef loved Poland more. She had no rival for Ned's love. She thought of all he had done for her since Magda's death: postponing their wedding, travelling to a Communist country with her, suffering her moods. She knew there was really no decision for her to make.

‘I should go upstairs and start packing,' she said.

Anna finally lit her cigarette. ‘Think of me now and again if you must, Helena. But I don't want you to come back. There is nothing for you here. I have Josef; he will take care of me, even from a distance. There are always people he can employ if I become a hopeless invalid. You may send me photographs from time to time.'

‘I will,' Helena assured her.

‘Especially of your children when you have them.'

‘I promise, and I'll also send you food parcels.'

‘Not too many. I have more tins in my pantry and clothes in my wardrobe than any other woman in the village. There's no point in making my neighbours even more jealous of me than they already are. But boxes of soap powder are always welcome.'

‘I'll remember,' Helena promised.

‘And now I will go and make us supper.'

‘There is no need –' Helena began.

‘Yes, there is. The sausage is not very good but Stefan can cook it while I sit in the kitchen and supervise.'

Helena kissed Anna's cheek.

‘My mother used to call kisses between mother and daughter sloppy. They're not so bad.' Anna became serious. ‘My Jerzy loved me. Really loved me. Almost as much as your Ned loves you. Be good to him, Helena. Honest men who love their women more than their causes and themselves are rarer than silver mushrooms. I know because I only ever found one.'

Chapter Twenty-two

Helena climbed the stairs, walked into the attic room and looked around for her duffle bag. She didn't have to look far. Ned had left it on the bed she had slept in every night since their arrival. She opened it, lifted out the photograph of Magda with Helena, and set it on the nightstand.

She stared at it for a long time. Aside from providing a window into another time, another world, there was an ethereal quality about it that reminded her of the Renaissance portraits of the Madonna and child. For the first time she thought about the other Helena as more than just Magda's much-loved and longed-for baby. A little girl who would have developed her own personality had she lived. If Magda had been allowed to bring up both of them, would they have been similar? Would they have argued and fought, as many sisters did? Or would they have been close? Friends as well as siblings. The way Ned was with his sister Rachel, beneath the teasing exterior.

She lifted the shawl from the bed and shook it free from its covering of tissue paper. She spread it carefully over the second bed and stepped back. Only then could she truly appreciate the many hours of a woman's life that had gone into making it. The stitching was perfect, the pattern even more intricate in reality than in the photograph.

She wondered if Magda or her mother had made it. Or even Weronika. Magda had taught her to sew, knit and crochet, but a work of art on the scale of the shawl was beyond her and, she suspected, Magda's expertise. She picked it up and re-folded it meticulously along the creases, re-wrapping each fold in the tissue paper. Perhaps one day it would be used to keep another child warm … She suppressed the thought almost before it arose. Her superstitious nature had been a gift from Magda: ‘Don't even think about it, Helena, or it won't come true.'

She lifted the wedding dress from its sheath of paper, and breathed in the scents of camphor and cedar wood. They were stronger than on the shawl. She wondered if they had been packed away in different chests.

She held the dress up in front of her. It was the bridal gown every little girl brought up on the age-old fairy tales of Cinderella and Snow White dreamed of. And it wasn't difficult to visualize Magda's excitement on her wedding day when she wore it in public for the first time. She looked at the stitches again, each one tiny and perfect, and recalled Magda telling her how all the women in her family had helped her to make the gown.

She imagined away her canvas shoes, jeans and T-shirt. Such a gown demanded the finest satin – no kid – court shoes, white silk stockings, a lace veil … and she knew, just knew, it would fit her perfectly. She looked down at her feet. Except one.

‘It's too short for you.'

She looked in the mirror and saw Ned standing behind her. ‘I know. I was just imagining Magda's excitement when she wore it to marry Adam Janek.'

‘Were you thinking of lengthening it?'

‘No.'

‘So you don't have any intention of wearing it on your wedding day?'

She set the gown on the bed and turned to him. ‘I have a gown for our wedding day.'

‘Our –'

‘I know it's irrational, but I've been eaten up with guilt because we were making love when Magda died.'

‘And you don't feel guilty any more?'

‘A little. But I think loving Adam Janek the way she did, Magda would have understood.'

‘She would also have understood that you couldn't be with her every minute of every day,' he agreed.

‘Anna told me that you love me.'

‘You've known that since the night of the freshers' ball.'

‘Yes,' she said slowly. ‘But it's difficult to accept unconditional love when you don't know who you are.'

He looked into her eyes. ‘And you know now?'

‘I think so.' She stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the lips.

He caught the bottom of the door with his foot and pushed it shut.

‘Lock it, Ned.'

‘Dinner …'

‘You're hungry?' she smiled, teasingly, in a way she hadn't done since they had left Bristol.

‘No.' His voice was thick with suppressed emotion.

‘Then it can wait, Ned. We have some catching up to do.'

He had to ask the question. ‘And tomorrow?'

‘If Norbert comes, we go home.'

‘That is the sweetest thing you've said to me since –'

‘Magda died?'

‘I didn't mean it that way.'

‘I know. Magda left me a legacy I neither wanted nor appreciated until I talked to Anna. What I do with the love she showered on me, and the upbringing she gave me, is my decision. I realise that now.ʼ

‘I love you, Helena soon-to-be John.'

‘That's one of the changes I need to talk to you about, but not now.' She pulled off her sweater. ‘Come to bed.'

‘Anna and Josef –'

‘Are grown-ups. They'll guess what we're doing.' She unzipped his jeans.

‘And when we go home, to Pontypridd?'

‘We'll marry, and I'll spend the rest of my life thanking you for helping me to find my way back to you.'

Josef was laying the table in the yard the next morning when Helena ran down the stairs. He set down a coffee pot and a plate of rolls, crossed his arms and gazed at her. The smile she intended to give him died on her lips, and her heart went out to him.

‘It wouldn't have worked between us, Josef.'

‘So Anna told me – and you.'

‘We're from different worlds.'

‘You're Polish.'

‘Magda brought me up to value the ways of a Poland that was the first casualty of the war. I don't belong in a Soviet state.'

‘We need people to fight for Poland's freedom –'

‘Not me, Josef. Something else Magda taught me was how to value and live the quiet domestic life. I came here to bury Magda with her beloved Adam. When I arrived I thought I knew who I was and where I came from. I didn't. I have a lot to be grateful to you and Anna for, but it's time for me to move on with Ned.'

Norbert walked into the yard. ‘Good morning.'

Helena looked at him in amazement. ‘You're early.'

‘If you want to go to town, we have to go now, in the next five minutes. I have another two pick-ups today. And you will be pleased to hear that there is a train that leaves at eleven for Warsaw.'

‘What about breakfast?'

‘You can have a mouthful of coffee while you make yourselves rolls that you can eat in the back of the car.' Norbert glanced up and saw Ned on the landing. ‘Bring down your cases.'

‘Be with you in one minute.' Ned disappeared inside. He emerged a few seconds later and stacked their cases, bag and his duffle bag on the landing. ‘Is there anything else you want up here, Helena?' he asked.

‘Nothing, thanks. I have my bag,' she called back.

He glanced back into the room and saw the piles of dollars and zlotys Helena had left on the dressing table beside the chocolates, tins of food and cosmetics. He closed the door, picked up the lug­ gage and went down to the yard.

Anna walked out of the kitchen with two brown paper bags that she handed to Helena. ‘Your breakfast.'

Helena hugged her and whispered in her ear, ‘How did you contact Norbert to tell him to come here so early this morning?'

‘I have my ways.'

As Helena moved back, she noticed the outline of a bottle in Anna's apron pocket.

Anna saw her looking at it. ‘That is another reason you should go, and quickly. If I want to drink myself to death, I will.'

‘Not while I'm around.' Josef wrapped his arm around Anna, slipped his free hand into her pocket and pulled out the bottle of vodka. It was empty.

‘You emptied it along with all the others in the house last night,' Anna said.

‘You expect me to deny it?'

‘No. I kept it for show. Old habits die hard.'

‘If I see you drinking in the bar, I'll send you to a health farm,' Josef warned.

‘As if you could afford it,' Anna mocked.

Ned held out his hand to Josef. ‘Goodbye, Josef. Thank you for your help.'

‘Don't you mean I hope I never see you again?'

‘Not at all. Call in and see us in Pontypridd anytime you like – maybe in ten years or so? We will have six or seven children by then.'

Josef had the grace to laugh. ‘I doubt the Communists will let me go wandering in the West again, but you never know.'

Norbert took the bags and carried them through the archway. Ned shook Anna's hand, took the paper bags from Helena, and followed Norbert.

Josef looked at Helena. ‘I'd rather not say goodbye to you.'

‘Look after yourself.' She bit her lip as tears pricked the back of her eyes.

‘Ned has the girl; he won't begrudge me a kiss.'

Helena expected a peck on the cheek but, very gently, Josef cradled her face in his hands and kissed her full on the mouth, long and lovingly. When he released her, he said, ‘That is what you will be missing every day for the rest of your life, Helena Janek.'

‘Helena Janek will miss it,' she agreed. ‘But Lena John won't.'

‘Lena?'

She looked at Anna and saw tears in her eyes.

‘Off with you.' Anna pushed her away before wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I hate long goodbyes.'

‘We've left some things in our room.'

‘Don't worry, Lena, I'll clear up your mess.'

‘Goodbye.' Helena knew it would be the last time she would see Anna. She walked through the archway. Ned was waiting for her in the back of the car.

‘Well, Helena soon-to-be John?'

‘How does Lena soon-to-be John sound to you?' she asked, as Norbert shut the door, climbed into the driving seat and pulled away.

‘You want to shorten Helena to Lena?'

‘When I was baptised I was given two names of my very own: Lena Matylda.'

‘So, no more Magda's daughter?'

‘No, Ned. One thing that I have learned in this village is that there is nature and nurture. And both are as important as one another. Magda saved my life, brought me up, cared for me and loved me until her dying day. I will always be Magda's daughter. But there is someone else I want to see before I leave here.' She leaned forward, towards the driving seat. ‘Norbert, do you know the shop where Weronika Janek works?'

‘Yes.'

‘Is it near the railway station?'

‘Five minutes away.'

‘Can we stop there?'

‘For five minutes – no longer if you want to catch the eleven o'clock train.'

‘Thank you.' She sat back in her seat, opened her duffle bag, and took out the box of photographs and the two frames she'd packed. She sat and looked at both of them: the one taken on Magda and Adam's wedding day, and the one of Magda sitting in the garden with her newborn baby.

Ned saw her looking at them and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. He didn't need to say anything because he knew what she was thinking.

‘I can't possibly take these from you,' Weronika protested when Helena gave her both framed photographs, but she couldn't take her eyes from them.

‘They are windows onto another time and another world, Weronika – your and Magda's world, not mine. I have no right to make you wait until I can copy them. Please, keep them.' She kissed Weronika' s cheek.

Norbert blasted his horn outside the shop.

‘If we are going to catch the eleven o'clock train, I have to go. Come and see us in Britain.'

Weronika followed her outside the shop. ‘As soon as I draw my pension and they let me leave the country,' she shouted after Helena in English, clutching the photographs to her chest.

Ned wound down the car window. ‘We'll look forward to seeing you, Weronika.'

‘My aunt by adoption.' Helena climbed past Norbert, who was holding the passenger seat forward so she could get into the back of the car.

‘You haven't much time to spare,' he warned as he pulled out on to the road.

‘We'll make it.' Helena smiled at Ned.

‘Damn,' Ned cursed. ‘I meant to ask Josef if he knew of a good hotel in Warsaw. There's no way I want to stay in the same one again.'

‘The Metropol. It's new, it's clean and you can tell them that Vlad sent you,' Norbert said, watching them in the rear-view mirror.

‘Vlad?' Ned asked.

‘In Warsaw I'm Vlad.' Norbert drew up in front of the station. ‘Five minutes to spare.'

Ned pulled out his wallet, but Norbert closed his hand over it. ‘I've been paid. Anna must really have wanted to get rid of you two.'