Pastel Orphans (18 page)

“I am sorry,” he says.

“What for?”

“For bringing you here. You should have stayed with your brother.”

“That would not have been any better.” And then I say more quietly, “I wouldn’t have been with you.”

He looks at me. His face is patched with grime. He reaches over and takes my hand. I am hoping that he feels the same. Then it is as if this touch has ignited something within him, and he stands to brush off the sleet.

“I know we are both tired, but we have to keep walking.” He steps towards me. “Here, lean on me. I will carry you the rest of the way if I have to.”

“You don’t have to,” I protest. “Just the stick will do.”

He puts his arm tightly around my waist and he shoulders both our packs.

“I think we might be there before nightfall.”

And then we are walking, warming up, though my throat is sore and my head aches. I do not say anything. I must get through this. I must not let the illness beat me, or our cause. There is a weight to my chest. This is the first symptom of a chronic illness that lies buried within me, always ready to return at some point when my resistance is low.

We trudge slowly in mud, slush, and snow. Although our legs are heavy, our heads weary, we do not stop. The sound of commercial activity grows louder as we reach more densely populated towns. It won’t be long before we reach the place of my birth.

I feel trepidation, because the closer I get, the clearer my memory of the night I disappeared. I think of my friends and relatives who are in the ghetto and wonder whether there is any chance I will see them alive again. I remember the heartache of my mother sewing yellow stars onto the front of our coats, her tears making dark stains on the fabric as she did this.

We relocated within the city to the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, into an abandoned apartment. But then we were ordered to leave there and move to the ghetto in Podgorze, another district of Cracow. I remember watching my neighbor load his horse and cart full of his belongings, his three little daughters also sitting in the back. I remember my father watching from the window, saying that they couldn’t make us go.

My father was well respected and well connected. He had many friends who weren’t Jewish. We were fortunate, to a point: able to hide in the cellars and attics of friends around the city. Always hiding like mice, always wondering what had become of our friends. He and my mother would fight often. She missed her family and believed we would be better off in the ghetto; she thought we would at least have company there. But we began to hear things about people being taken or shot. About soldiers appearing at front doors without warning, and families split apart. We were always relying on the generosity of others. This was hard for my father. His independence and his ability to support his family were everything to him.

Henrik and I leave the forest and find a road. It will not be so easy to disguise who we are. Henrik sits down behind snow-covered bushes to discuss a plan.

“We must not look like we are travelling. We need to hide our packs and the rifle and we will pick them up when we return. There is an address on the letter from Otto’s girlfriend in Cracow. We can go there first.”

I tell Henrik that the address is on the other side of the city. We have to cross the city looking like beggars. I tell him that I do not think we will make it without being stopped.

“We stayed with a family for a while,” I say. “They looked after us until they thought they were being watched. We could go there for a night.” There is a selfish motive to my suggestion: I do not think I will last another hour of travel.

“So they asked you to leave?”

“They had to. They had their own children to consider.”

“How do you know they will accept you now?”

“I don’t. But we can try.” I cough. It hurts.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I lie. “They may not take us in. They may be too fearful.”

He thinks about this while we bury the packs. My fingernails are chipped and caked with dirt. I imagine my face is as grimy as Henrik’s. Our clothes are muddied and wet.

“We have to wash.”

“Yes,” says Henrik. “Stay here. I will find something.”

Every time he leaves me, I think he won’t return. Being separated gets harder each time. It is like we have never
not
been together. But it is not like brother and sister. This is something more.

I stay behind some trees. I see much from my hiding spot. There are vehicles and carts going in and out of the city. There are houses along the main road. Some people are walking and some, cycling. I am envious that they do not have to hide.

C
HAPTER
25

I am getting anxious. Henrik still hasn’t returned. The thought of another night in the forest fills me with dread. I begin to overheat and peel off my coat, then shortly afterwards slide back into it when a chill creeps up my spine. My body cannot decide if it is hot or cold.

It is dusk when he returns.

He has everything we need: soap, clothes, a coat that’s too big for me, and a stick to help me walk. The clothing looks clean and warm. He helps me back to the icy edges of the river, and we use the soap to wash our hair and faces and hands. I pull my hair back into a tight bun. Henrik dangles a silk scarf in front of me.

“For class.”

He has become quite the thief.

We turn away shyly from one another to dress ourselves. Henrik’s pants are too short but the shirt fits well across his shoulders. Over this he wears a jacket, and a cap is on his head.

“How do I look?” he says, and struts around with an exaggerated German soldier’s walk. Despite how ill I am feeling, he still makes me smile. I feel better when I do.

“Now we have to think of new identities. If anyone asks, I am Otto and you are . . . Emelie, Otto’s girlfriend.” He pulls out a photo and papers. It is a picture of Otto. “I can pretend I am Otto with his identity papers and say that I am on military leave.”

“You don’t look anything like him,” I say, studying the photo, remembering Otto’s boyish stare.

“I will wear my cap low.”

The plan is not even close to tight but we have nothing else.

“Once we are there, with your friends, we will find out if they know of any safe houses, and perhaps they will know something of where my sister has been taken.

“For now, we will stay well back from the road. If we see a vehicle, we will walk towards a house as if it is ours. We will even walk right through the front door if we have to.”

We stay in the shadows till dark. We have trained our ears to listen for footsteps. We can hear the sound of cars from many streets away. We are careful.

Then we are in the city and it is dark and we slide along back streets and pass amongst people undetected, for the most part.

I know my way through Cracow. I am useful this way. We arrive at a familiar house, and I knock softly. A woman whose name I can’t remember opens the door, releasing the light from the hallway.

She does not appear to recognize me at first, and then she does. She offers a wary smile and calls her husband to the front door.

“I am wondering, since you helped me that last time, whether you can help again . . . just for a couple of days.”

“No,” says the man in a gruff voice. “You should get out of the city.”

There is a hollowness to his tone, as if he has nothing inside of him, as if he has been emptied of feelings. He tells his wife to close the door.

“Please, Irena,” I say, suddenly remembering her name.

“I’m sorry, dear,” says Irena. “It has been a very tough war. We lost our son in the fighting and it would not seem right if we took in those like you.”

Like me!
I think, as if I am somehow the cause for their suffering. I want to shout “but we are the same” but I say nothing. I feel Henrik nudge me in the back. He wants to go. All I say is: “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Rebekah,” she says as I turn to leave. Her husband has already returned to the depths of the house. “I remember you were a lovely girl. I wish you luck . . .” And then her voice breaks and she begins to shut the door.

Henrik thrusts his foot forward to block the door from closing.

“One thing,” he says. “Can you tell me where this street is?”

The woman squints at the map that Henrik is pointing at before taking her glasses from around her neck and putting them on. Henrik passes her the map and she holds it towards the light.

“If you keep going up that road, you will reach the village. Turn right at the factory.”

Henrik snatches the map away from her. She takes off her glasses and looks at Henrik disapprovingly, as if she has found another reason not to help us. “Why do you want to go there? It is full of Germans, like everywhere else in the city.”

“None of your business,” says Henrik in a cold-sounding voice.

“Bastards!” he exclaims as we walk away, and I touch his arm to silence him.

“You should not have shown her where we are heading.”

“I didn’t. I showed her a street far from where we are going, in case she contacts the police.” He is right not to trust anyone, even Irena, who was kind once. It is an unkind war.

Henrik puts his arm around me and we hobble along like man and wife, down the main streets. We are headed towards the address of Emelie’s house on the outskirts of Cracow but it is too far for us to get there tonight. We are both exhausted and I am ready to collapse.

“You must rest. You need to put your leg up. We need food.”

“We can just go back to the villages. Maybe sleep in some bushes.”

“No,” says Henrik. “We will keep going a little longer.”

The streets are emptying. It is dangerous for us to still be out and my heart races every time we see anyone. Everyone is the enemy here, all those who would see my family gone or dead. Suspicion has become a part of living.

We walk near the river until we find a small boat to steal. I remember this river, with its rim of frozen, winter-white bushes lining its borders. In another couple of days the river will be covered with a blanket of ice. Henrik rows us across the water. It takes much effort for him to cross the current, which carries us swiftly away from our destination and towards a well-lit bridge stationed with guards. It takes many minutes before we reach the other side of the river. We pull the boat into bracken and hide it for our return.

We walk as far from the road as possible. Some trucks pass and their drivers look at us, but they are thankfully not curious enough to stop. Only once do we see an official vehicle, and when we do—true to Henrik’s plan—we walk towards the front door of the first house we pass. But the car does not seem to notice us; it passes just as we reach the door and we continue as before.

It is as if the war hasn’t found the city; it is as beautiful as it was before. I point across the river. “There is the ghetto, across that bridge.”

We reach a part of town once known as the Jewish quarter—before its inhabitants were relocated to the Podgorze ghetto—and pass a row of abandoned workshops. Hanging on a wall outside are the remains of a printing-works sign. There are no lights on and the windows are smashed. Henrik lifts me through a gap and then climbs in after me. The lights are on in apartments nearby, which Germans have taken over. We have managed to dodge the German military, which patrols the area, but my throat hurts more from suppressing the noise of my cough. “We will sleep on the ground here,” Henrik says. “And before sunrise we will continue to Otto’s girlfriend’s house.” He points to streets on a map, and I follow his fingers and confirm that we are going the right way.

“If we follow this road and turn here, we will reach it.”

I fall asleep and wake early to the sound of the city rising slowly, like a giant groaning beast. Engines purr close by. I do not want to rise. There is so much pain it is difficult to place where the worst is coming from. Henrik is keen to move and jumps up to spy through the windows, adjusting his pack.

“I can’t,” I say. “You go ahead. I know the way. I will meet you there.” I put my head back down. All I want is sleep, and to forget for a while. In my dreams there is no pain or loss.

He looks at me, concerned, touching my shoulder and leaning in towards me. He is so close to me that I can see the tiny red blood vessels around his circles of marbled blue.

“No,” he says. “We must keep going. We must never say die.”

We reach the outskirts of the city as a bright red sun surfaces gingerly on the horizon. My mouth is dry.

There are now some vehicles moving, and each time we hear one we scramble into the trench beside the road.

“Are you sure we are going the right way?” asks Henrik.

“Yes,” I say.

Ahead there are formidable manor houses. The one we seek is set well back from the street. We creep beneath the side windows of the house, and since we cannot hear any sounds yet, we take the chance to run to the rear of the property, towards a barn. There is a padlock on the front door so we go to the back of the barn. To cover up the noise, Henrik waits for the sound of a passing truck before smashing a windowpane. He reaches inside to release the lock and clears the jagged pieces of glass at the window’s rim. He wriggles in first and pulls me through by the arms. I am close to a dead weight. Every part of me feels like it has been filled with lead. We climb a ladder that leads to a loft. I think I might be sick, but there is nothing in my stomach.

“What now?”

“We wait and watch from the window to see who comes and goes.”

There are sacks of food stored here. Henrik pulls out two oranges, bites into one—skin and all—and passes me the other. When I don’t take it, he peels it for me. My arm is heavy when I reach out to take it. Then he opens a sack of flour and takes a mouthful. I do not want to eat.

“You should have some. It makes your belly feel full. Are you all right?”

“Just tired.”

“You must eat.”

“Later,” I whisper.

I put my head on a sack of flour. I think how tragic it is that we have had to break into someone else’s home, and that I might die in a stranger’s loft. I stare through a tiny glass window, which lets in a melancholy light that seems to say:
What are you doing here? There is nothing for you here.

Henrik has disturbed my dreams again by moving around the loft. It is late afternoon. I feel my bowels move so I drag myself down the ladder, unbolt the door at the back of the barn, and walk outside in the slush to relieve myself. I can smell that he has already done the same and covered it with snow. I crawl back up the ladder to my sleeping place in the corner of the loft.

“There are only women in the house. It looks like there is a mother and her two daughters, and their housekeeper.”

“What if they come out to collect food here?”

“That’s what I am watching for. If they come, we will climb down from the loft and hide in one of the stalls.”

There are several compartments below us where horses were kept, though there are none there now. One of the stalls now has a broken window. I am hoping this isn’t noticed. These people living here are probably not the true owners. For one moment I hate the girls who live in this expensive home.

“We’re safe for now,” says Henrik. “We’ll sleep. It looks like you need it. Are you sure you are feeling all right?”

“Yes.”

“You look gray.”

“I’m fine.”

Sometime during the night I wake and try to catch my breath. My chest hurts each time I cough, and my breath is raspy. Henrik doesn’t stir.

In the morning I see the woman and her girls leave the house. There is a fine mist across the snowy paddock and the smell of cut pine pervades the air. At another time this peaceful scene would have been free for everyone to enjoy. But during this war we can only borrow someone else’s view—someone who believes they are more deserving.

I do not disturb Henrik. He wakes late and apologizes for sleeping so long.

“That is the best sleep I’ve had.”

I tell him the girls have left.

“I have a new plan.”

Henrik is always thinking.

“I am going to copy Otto’s handwriting and write to his girlfriend, Emelie. I am going to say in the letter that ‘Henrik and Rebekah are friends of mine and could you help them? They saved my life.
’
”

“You have to tell her Otto is dead. It is only fair.”

“I will, eventually, but keeping him alive in this letter might be the only way to get her to help us.”

I agree because part of me does not care, the part of me that feels so ill. I try to stand but lose my balance and Henrik, as quick as ever, jumps up to catch me. He feels my forehead and looks at me with deep concern.

“You are very ill. You have a raging fever and need medicine.”

He opens a sack containing sugar and scoops some up with his hand. “Here, put this on your tongue.”

“How will that help?”

“You must have something, at least for energy.”

He gives me a water bottle that he has filled with snow.

“How long have you felt sick?”

“Two days, I guess.”

“I’m sorry. I thought you were just tired.”

This is what I wanted him to think.

“Lie down and stay down,” he says. “I will take care of everything.”

“How are we going to get Emelie’s attention? She must be the older girl.”

“I don’t know. I might put the letter from Otto under the front door, along with a message asking her to come to the barn and not tell anyone.”

His idea carries much risk but I am too weary to question anything.

Henrik writes the letter, copying Otto’s handwriting. It takes him several attempts. He uses some loose paper from his drawing book that is always inside his shirt, as if it is an extension of him, a limb he can’t do without.

It is almost dark when he completes the task, but before he can take further action, he is startled by movement at the back of the house. The younger girl, who is perhaps twelve, wears oversized snow boots and crosses the paddock towards the barn.

“Hurry!” says Henrik. “Climb down into the stalls.”

We hide behind a wall and watch the girl walk through the doors and climb the ladder to the loft. A short time later she climbs back down again.

“I must speak to her.”

I grab his arm and shake my head. I believe he will frighten her, but he ignores me and steps towards her. I follow behind, clinging onto him. My breaths are short and loud. She hears this and turns.

“Hello,” he says brightly, in Polish. The girl looks like a frightened rabbit. She says nothing. She holds a basket full of apples and oranges. I notice that many of the apples have bruises.

“I don’t think she understands.”

Then Henrik introduces himself in German and at this the girl lifts her head slightly, her interest piqued. “And this is Rebekah. We are good friends of Otto, your sister’s friend.”