The Light at the End of the Day

by Eleanor Wasserberg

  ‘But you could crush someone in there.’

  ‘No, silly, you can see if someone is looking at the books! Besides, the shelves aren’t so heavy.’

  ‘I don’t like it.’ And it was true that as she peered into the dark tunnels of books Alicia felt the opposite of the rooting, calming feeling her sister had described to her in this place; instead she felt this was another frightening maze to navigate, like unfamiliar streets, new fields, all the dark and shadowy places outside Kraków. She didn’t like how loud their voices were here, how their footsteps seemed to bounce around the walls. She didn’t like the colourless room, the bright, white walls, the books all in pale green or brown leather.

  ‘Look, they’re Polish,’ Sophia said, taking one from the shelf. Alicia recognised a series from the bookshelf at home, the same font and cover, poetry perhaps. Then she recognised her sister’s handwriting on the sticker in the spine, her looping, sloped hand categorising it. ‘You’re home now,’ Sophia said. ‘You’re in Poland, we’re surrounded by Polish words. You’ll be safe here,’ she said, kissing the book she was holding. Karolina smiled at her.

  When after an hour, two hours, there were no soldiers, and no one came down into the stacks, Alicia began daring herself deeper and deeper into the dark book tunnels, whistling so Sophia would remember not to crush her. Soon the murmur of the others was absorbed and dulled by the reams of pages. She looked for the large hardbacks from Papa’s shelves and Stefan’s office, the art books with prints in rich colours, double pages with close-ups of details from the masters, the ones Jozef had been teaching her. She should have asked Karolina to bring her these things before, but the library had seemed like an imaginary place. Her hand snared on a familiar book, the Odyssey Karolina had been translating for years. She could see it splayed open in various spine-broken places around the apartment, always on chairs or windowsills or on the floor. She pulled it down; it was the same edition, the same green cover with its vaguely Greek design around the edges.

  ‘Karolcia, look,’ she said, her voice carrying louder than she’d intended, as she walked back towards the others, holding up the book for her mother to see just as the lift roared open, and there was a confusion of sound: one of the women from earlier, her sister’s friends, was talking in a manic rapid language Alicia couldn’t follow, there were two other footsteps, and men’s voices.

  They couldn’t be seen from the lift, here on the other side of the book stacks. Anna held a finger to her lips and Janina clamped a hand over her own mouth, not trusting herself. Paulina was chatting determinedly in Russian, the edge of flirtation in her voice. She was leading the soldiers in the other direction, but they would loop around and see them soon. They scuttled into the stacks, into the dimness, the centre of the book maze, wincing as their shoes hit the floors, hoping the books would muffle it. As they reached the middle Sophia gestured with her hands flat and they all understood but Janina, who watched with a grim face as the others clambered on the shelves, undignified, hiding like robbers in a fairy tale, like rats in sewers. At least the books were clean. The others burrowed back deep into the stacks, lying on rows of files and boxes behind the books, the whites of their eyes showing in the gloom. Janina felt the whisper of the monsters at their back and took Sophia’s hand to pull her up; awkwardly she lay among them, her legs wrapped around a steel joint. It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all going to be all, all right, she pulsed through her mind and body, imagining her spine throbbing with it, all right, all right, all—

  Anna’s hand gripped her shoulder. Had she begun whispering it aloud? She bit the inside of her cheek. The receptionist’s chatter was faltering, now becoming shrill. Janina willed her on. Come on, you stupid little tart! Lead them away. Sophia and Karolina are your friends, aren’t they? The others echoed the message, in varying degrees of temper: Anna was ready to murder the stupid girl herself, bash out her brains on this shining floor. Sophia felt only warmth for her, hearing how much she was trying.

  ‘Translate for us, I can’t follow,’ Janina whispered to her, but Anna’s shush was so savage she hardly dared breathe after that.

  Sophia’s breathing quickened, and that told them enough. They were coming into the stacks. Their boots sounded like gunshots on the floor. Wordlessly, they all reached out to hold something: a hand, a knee, even hair, and gripped. Karolina and Alicia held hands, something they’d become used to since they left Kraków, when they’d barely touched before, but now they knew the smoothness of each other’s young palms by heart, the calloused, cracked fingers and thumbs, the flaking nails. Sophia felt sick at the thought of her husband and parents, and regretted, suddenly, coming here; in this last moment, she couldn’t remember what loyalty she’d felt to these people at all, and felt like a stupid child. This passed after a heartbeat, and Sophia added this failure to the others she must list in her prayers.

  Shadows moved across the floor, though all but Alicia had closed their eyes; she stared up, at the books above them, trying to count what pages she could see in the dim light. The air changed as they held breaths, feeling the pressure build in lungs and stomachs; like a train passing and leaving a violent, manufactured wind behind it, the guards seemed to push all the air back towards the hiding family. Nails dug into skin then, gripped fabric, unfeeling and inflicting no pain, until later when they would find the bruises and broken skin.

  They passed by. The sound of the boots grew quieter and quieter. Soon the men were laughing, the receptionist echoing laughter back to them, and the lift sang its dull song as it was called back to the stacks basement.

  Janina schooled herself in breathing again, so afraid of the traitor sound of the air in her nostrils, the rise and fall of her tightened chest, that she sipped instead through a pursed mouth. It failed to work; the air wouldn’t reach her lungs. She thought, I will drown here, and I will never see Aleks again—

  It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all going to be all, all right, everything is—

  A grip on Janina’s arm tightened. She remembered Aleks after a nightmare. It’s all right, she soothed him. It’s all right, it’s all right … She thought of Laurie, his spirit worrying for her, watching. Laurie, tell me it’s all right.

  Janina opened her eyes to the panicked white orbs of Anna’s, the gleam of her teeth as her mouth fell open. Around her, like owls, the wide eyes of Anna, Karolina, Sophia. Karolina let go of Alicia and began to move towards Janina, brushing away her mother’s hands, as the footsteps’ echo still bounced around the walls. Janina tried to whisper, Karolina, stay still, and it was only then she connected the panicked, clouded part of her brain to her moving tongue and throat. She clamped a hand over her own babbling mouth just before Karolina did.

  Paulina had begun chattering wildly, but was silenced by a harder word from one of the soldiers. The shadows grew again. Karolina was at the edge of the shelf now, her hand over Janina’s weeping face. She glanced back at the others. Alicia’s eyes were open and staring at her, always so intense and unblinking. Her mother’s face was alive with panic, her hands reaching for Karolina, mouthing, No, no, no, don’t.

  Karolina slipped out of the shelf, hearing the family scuttle further back, a whimper that could be any of them. When the soldiers came she was standing as far from the others as she could, hoping the soldiers wouldn’t sweep through the stacks with a torch. She picked up Janina’s lines and told the soldiers in Polish it would all, all be all right, as though they had come to her for comfort.

  28

  THE LOBBY WAS EMPTY when they passed back through, and the library closed; Sophia took a key from behind the desk to let them out of a side door, into an alleyway. She slipped her arm around Anna’s waist and steered her out. She talked in clipped, determined tones as they picked their way through the rubbish-strewn street.

  ‘Sammy is a lawyer. That will make a difference. I know others, if, if it turns out we need a more prestigious one. Theo has contacts. We can mobilise a whole army of volunteer
s at the church, to write letters, to protest, we’re already organising one for this Sunday, we can bring it forwards, we’ll picket the main barracks, the government buildings … Oh, I wish I’d jumped out and protested there and then! May God forgive me; I’ll never forgive myself for such cowardice!’

  ‘We should have stayed at the house,’ Janina fretted, as they moved into the wider main street. Her voice was cracked, her throat dry with mortified sobbing. Anna closed her eyes as the older woman spoke; it had seemed wisest, until she was sure her other daughter was safe, to pretend Janina did not exist. Alicia had no such qualms, and met Janina’s voice, her first spoken words since Karolina had been taken, by launching herself at her old neighbour, hitting her arms and stomach, aiming for her face. Janina wheeled back.

  ‘Alicia!’

  ‘Stop, Alicia, we have to be quiet,’ her mother said. She met Janina’s eyes for a moment and let Janina see the ice in them. When they walked on again, Janina stayed behind, an invisible, terrifying barrier now drawn between her and the others. She tried to calm herself but found only a deep well of panic she dared not look at; instead she spoke to Aleks and Laurie in her head, biting her lip hard so she was sure not to speak: You understand, don’t you, my darlings? You forgive me?

  ‘Why didn’t we just stay in the stacks?’ Alicia said, feeling the electricity of her rage at Janina still crackling through her fingers. ‘Karolina sacrificed herself for us and we just—’

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ Anna snapped. ‘We’ll go back to Margo’s and discuss what to do. What, are we going to hide with the books forever?’

  Yes, yes, yes, they couldn’t see us, why not? Janina thought. Why not?

  The streets of Lwów were quiet again, but this time with a feeling of something hollowed out, no longer holding its breath but not breathing at all. Curtains were drawn, offices shuttered, the lights in front windows were unlit, families having retreated to back rooms or even cellars, until the rumours changed and the knock-knock on doors and questions stopped and the reliable gossips began singing a different tune. They passed one defiantly open bar, clusters of men sitting around small tables, playing board games, smoking, reading the papers. All locals, no soldiers. They walked past unnoticed. Or perhaps, Anna thought as one of the men pulled his coat around him, determinedly fixed his gaze on a chess piece, they feel a chill as we pass, as though we’re ghosts.

  It was Margo they saw first, standing at the window. She was making sharp motions with her wrists, as though flicking something from the back of her hands, the same she used for stop talking or tell me or where is that thing or even you know I love you. She looked over her shoulder into the room behind her, to Isaac or Sammy or both, back to where the three women stood fixed in place. Margo placed a palm on the window. Anna wanted to raise hers in return, but found she couldn’t let go of Alicia’s hand. Her body was flooded with heat; she felt sweat forming on her back, but Alicia’s hand was bloodless and cold in hers. Sophia wasn’t even looking at Margo, but instead staring at the line of refugees kneeling in the road, hands behind heads, looking at the cobbles. They made a line like a breadcrumb trail up to Sophia’s front door. At the end of the line was Theo, standing, his face against the outside wall of their house, hands behind his back.

  Sophia lunged towards him and a soldier caught her gracefully, in one arm, and manoeuvred her like a dancer to Theo’s side, her heels ringing out across the cobblestones. The soldier murmured something to Sophia and she put her face to the wall like her husband, reaching for his hand. The soldier noticed and gave an uncertain smile to another man in uniform, shrugged towards them, How sweet.

  For a wild moment, Anna considered diving towards Margo’s house, a children’s game in which if she could get across the threshold, they would be safe. At the window, there was now only the lining of Margo’s drawn curtains. When the soldier approached them she started to assemble some lines in Ukrainian, briefly wondered if she should pretend they were French, but the man’s small, knowing smile, his quick glance back at Sophia and Theo, made everything fade to grey. She began babbling, ‘We have all our papers in order, we have family here, that is my brother-in-law’s house, he’s a lawyer, we have money in Kraków, my husband—’ and suddenly around her were Margo and Isaac, taking up her pleas, the same facts, the same arguments, counting them off on their fingers, papers, family, money, and Isaac kept calling Father, Father, come and explain, but Sammy’s shape behind the curtain was still. Janina was silent, nodding along, afraid if she tried to speak she would start to cry in fear, while Alicia didn’t trust herself to speak, knowing she couldn’t beg or plead like the others, that only the worst curses would come out, the most unimaginable hatred and bile, and damn them all, so instead she clung to her mother’s side, as though she were a tiny child, and buried her face in her coat, breathed her in as she wished she had done more with Papa, while her mother and Margo and Isaac bleated the same hopeless charm that never worked.

  One of the men held out his hand to Anna. She took a breath, steadied herself, and gently disentangled Alicia. At least she would not be manhandled across the street like poor Sophia. The soldier’s hand was limp in hers.

  He laughed, looking down at her hand in his. It spread to his colleague, who said something in Russian and shook his head. The laughter rang around the silences of the kneeling refugees and jarred against the walls of the watching houses.

  ‘Papers,’ the soldier said in Polish.

  Margo ran inside, and Anna put her hands together. The sounds of an argument from Margo’s house: Sammy’s voice rising and being cut off by Margo’s sharp exclamation. She came back with Janina’s papers. ‘Here,’ she said, as she handed them to Anna with anxious questions in her eyes.

  The man flicked through them like he was counting bank notes. ‘Hmm. Only one here. You all should have registered.’

  ‘Yes, sorry, we will,’ Anna said.

  ‘We need to know who is here. It’s important to register.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anna. She paused for a beat. ‘My elder daughter – she was taken by some … colleagues of yours, this afternoon.’

  ‘Hmm. Don’t worry, they’ll process her then she can contact you.’

  The huge knot in Anna’s chest unfurled one tiny fibre.

  ‘Contact us how?’

  ‘Okay, go, collect your things.’ He gestured for them to go inside.

  Anna stared at him.

  ‘But—’ she said.

  ‘Go, go.’

  Anna’s legs wouldn’t move. The man from the Jagiellonian who had told her of Stefan was kneeling at her feet, swaying a little. His hands were splayed either side of his knees and she saw that one of his fingers was broken.

  The soldier followed her gaze and his face softened a fraction. ‘You’re to be sent home to Kraków today. There are trains taking you all.’

  Janina gasped. ‘But the Germans—’

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right there,’ the soldier waved her away.

  ‘My daughter will be sent there too? Is that where they’re taking the arrested people?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Yes, yes, all the Poles are being sent that way. Come on, get your things, quickly, quickly.’ He glanced at Margo, who had moved to put her arms around Alicia.

  ‘Polish?’ he called to her.

  ‘No, no, we live here,’ she said.

  The soldier glanced at the house.

  ‘Hiding illegals like your neighbour?’ He nodded at two colleagues, who headed towards Margo’s house. She shook her head.

  ‘Jew?’ he asked, moving towards her. She hesitated, then nodded. Everyone and everything seemed still. The two soldiers returned, smooth-faced.

  ‘Poles are to leave,’ the man called. ‘Jews here stay where you are.’ He didn’t add for now.

  They stood facing each other like country dancers in the little front room: Margo opposite Anna, Sammy across from Alicia, Isaac from Janina.

  Sammy patted Alicia’s head. ‘Sa
y hello to your Papa, when you see him. Say we’ll keep doing all we can for Karolina this end, though it will be easier for you there, better contacts …’ He trailed off as Alicia regarded him coolly. ‘Glad we could help, little one,’ he added, offering her a smile. She gave him a tight nod. When he held out his arms she put out her hand to shake. He laughed, showing his missing teeth, and kissed it.

  Janina was holding Isaac tightly. ‘My lovely boy,’ she said. ‘My lovely, lovely boy.’

  ‘Good luck, Mrs Kardas,’ he replied, pulling himself free. ‘I hope you find Aleks.’

  Anna and Margo were both fumbling with Anna’s coat.

  ‘This thing!’ Margo cried. ‘I bought it for a wedding and the buttons have never been right—’ Her voice caught and she pulled Anna into an embrace. ‘I’ve sewn cash into all of the linings,’ she whispered. As she pulled back she shook her head, so that Anna wouldn’t give this away to Sammy.

  ‘How can I ever,’ Anna began, but Margo was shaking her head, tears in her eyes mirroring Anna’s own, and Anna could only kiss her sister-in-law’s cheek. ‘Should we go?’ Anna burst out. ‘What if it’s—’

  ‘You don’t have a choice,’ Sammy said. ‘They’ll drag you out.’

  ‘The stories from the others,’ Anna said.

  ‘Maybe it really is safer to go home now,’ Margo said, her eyes full. ‘Look what happened to Schmuel.’

  Margo kissed them all as they went through the door, then turned away, unable to watch them make the short walk to the waiting truck. It was Isaac who watched them from the window, smiling and holding up a hand to Alicia when she looked back.

  29

  JUST AS ON the journey from Kraków, now many months before, the number of people was a comfort. Janina scanned over the lines and groups, all chattering in Polish, Kraków accents seeming to rise above the others, and felt the ground firmer beneath her feet. Their little group, even smaller without Karolina, stood on the edge, and the three of them felt a pull to the middle of the crowd, to be invisible, swallowed up, to hear stories and share theirs, to talk of home. The small front room of the house in Lwów was already dissolving. Janina looked up to a cloudy sky, flecked with blue, cold air on her cheeks. It was all going to be all, all right. Her boy would be able to find her in Kraków more easily. She should never have left.