‘“This is Ania,” Sommer said, when he observed the old man watching me with interest. “I hope that she might be able to stay here with you for a short while.”
‘If Roman was surprised, he didn’t show it.
‘“She’s welcome to. But it’s not very pleasant, I’m afraid. Terribly hot,” he said, spreading his arms, “and the smoke gets in your chest. I can only offer you the loft. It’s the furthest away from the ovens.”
‘It was a tiny room with sloping ceilings and a mattress on the floor. But it was all I needed – and, most of all, it was warm.
‘I lay down and tried to listen in on the conversation of the men downstairs, but I could hear nothing but a low murmur…’
Ania’s eyes were still closed as she said this and I knew she was back in that warm loft.
I left her there, still basking in the sunshine as I made my way with a heavy heart to face Gem.
FIFTEEN
The front door of Gem’s house was open. I walked in to the sound of crying coming from the kitchen, somebody playing an out-of-tune piano, and a voice screaming, ‘Tasha, get down here right now!’
It had been like this ever since I could remember. Gem was one of five kids, which meant that going into her house was always like walking into a hurricane. It was the exact opposite of everything I was used to at home – peace, quiet and tidiness. Gem’s mum, Liz, always looked a bit tired, and I sometimes felt bad coming round because it seemed like I was only adding to her workload by being there.
‘Hi!’ I shouted as I walked in. The only way of being heard in Gem’s house was to be louder than anyone else.
‘Oh, hiya love,’ said Liz, wiping her hand across her forehead. ‘Gem and the girls are already upstairs. Here, this batch is for you all,’ she said, handing me a plate of pancakes. ‘Grab a tray and take it upstairs. Help yourself to the jam from the fridge, and the lemon and sugar are there on the side.’
I did as she said, and moments later, I was climbing the three flights of stairs to the loft conversion that Gem shared with her little brother, Stu. She ushered me in. ‘Don’t worry. The brat’s out at his friend’s place,’ she announced. ‘Come in.’
‘Gem’s got some news,’ Dilly burst out before I’d even managed to sit down.
I was dreading what she was about to say, but it turned out that it wasn’t what I expected at all.
‘Arun’s asked me out,’ said Gem, turning bright red. ‘He wants to go to the cinema next weekend. He’s going with Jace and he said that I should bring a friend too, so I guess it’s sort of a double date. I thought of taking you, Kat, but I decided to ask Ruby to come with me. She’s had a thing for Jace for a while anyway.’
Ruby started protesting, but I could tell she was chuffed.
‘Great,’ I said. ‘That’s exciting.’ I crossed my fingers behind my back, hoping that the conversation would now be all about Arun instead of Julius, but no such luck.
‘You’re all going to have to help me choose my outfit,’ said Gem. ‘I’ve made a shortlist of five, and Dil says that I can try on the new dress that she got from her aunt in America. Anyway, today we’re not talking about that. We need to form a plan of action for Operation Loser Boy. Speaking of which, this is his latest: I got your message, but I don’t think you mean it. Sounds like you’re having a laugh at me.’
‘I’ve had a thought,’ said Ruby, fiddling with her earrings and looking directly at Gem. ‘I was watching a show on telly the other night in which people meet in a restaurant for their date and they get blindfolded before they walk in. Usually their blind date has brought them something. You know – like, a cake that they’ve made just for them, or a little present. I reckon that we should get Julius to do something like that.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘We get Kat to message him saying that he has to come at lunchtime to a special place that we’ve agreed, wearing a blindfold and holding a rose. It’s because she’s got a surprise in store for him.’
‘Perfect,’ said Gem, grinning, ‘And then we invite everyone to come along quietly and watch him. You’re an absolute genius!’
I could just imagine it. Julius standing in the middle of the stage in the school hall with a blindfold on holding a single rose, and the whole class staring at him, laughing.
‘I think what we’ll do,’ Gem continued, ‘is to spread the word by email. We each know the email addresses of at least ten people in the class, and we’ll ask them to pass it on to others. We won’t tell them what’s going on – we’ll just say that there’s a secret event happening in the school hall at 1.45 p.m. on Wednesday and that they should be there because it will be super funny.’
‘What if somebody tells Julius?’ Dilly asked.
‘Nobody will. He’s not been here long enough. People wouldn’t have his email address, and, besides, haven’t you seen that he doesn’t have any friends?’
‘But… what do you want me to do when he turns up, thinking that I’ll be there?’ I asked. My voice sounded echoey, as if I was standing in a tunnel.
‘Ah, you will be there, though, won’t you? You’ll be in the crowd, laughing at him! Maybe we’ll even get him to say a few magic words before the surprise is revealed to him. That would be properly hilarious.’
‘Yeah, that would be ace! Maybe something like, “I think you’re a goddess. Let me see what you have planned for me…”’
They all chuckled. Gem was laughing so much that she toppled over, her elbow in the pancake plate.
My phone was lying on the floor, next to the cushion that I’d sat down on. Gem grabbed it and began to compose the message, her tongue sticking out in concentration. Dilly looked over her shoulder, grinning as she read.
I tried to protest, but no sound came out of my mouth. I just sat there, staring at them dumbly.
Gem read out what she was typing.
‘I thought maybe we could meet? I have a little surprise for you and I’ve been dying to show you. Meet on Wednesday on the stage of the school hall at 1.45 p.m.? Could you wear a blindfold to make it more exciting? xxx.’
‘What about telling him what he should say and to bring a rose?’
‘Let’s wait for him to agree to this. Kat will send that in her next message. We need to keep him interested,’ said Gem. ‘You can’t tell him everything in one go. Trust me – I know how to work this.’
I tried my caterpillar trick to calm down, but I couldn’t focus and kept losing count. I felt as though I was breathing through a straw and no matter how hard I tried and how wide I opened my mouth, I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs.
And then I couldn’t stand it any longer. I knew that I needed to get myself out of that room, otherwise something terrible might happen.
‘Kat, are you OK? Do you not feel well?’ asked Ruby. ‘You look pale. Here, let me go and get you some water.’
‘No. No, I’m sorry,’ I muttered. ‘I’m going to have to go,’ I told them.
I picked up my jacket and ran down the stairs as fast as I could. It was only when I reached the end of the road that I stopped and leaned against the lamppost. The cold air flooded my lungs and my shoulders heaved. My heart thumped out the steady, reassuring message, I’m OK. I’m OK. I’m OK.
SIXTEEN
I stared back down the street to see whether they’d followed me, but there was no sign of anyone.
I pulled my jacket on. I still didn’t have my phone. For a moment, I considered going back, but I knew I couldn’t face it. I’d have to demand it from Gem at school on Monday. Whatever messages she sent with it couldn’t cause more damage than she already had.
I walked home slowly. On every street I set myself a different challenge. On the first, I could walk only on the pavement slabs, on the second, only on the cracks, on the third, I had to reach each lamppost in less than seven steps. That way, I didn’t have to think about Gem or Julius, or the messages. I could focus on walking – on getting from one place to another. Everything else co
uld wait.
Nobody was home when I got back as it was Lena’s day off. Dad always went for a couple of drinks after football and Mum was probably still at the flower market. I found Chester in my room, lounging around in the middle of the bed, which probably meant that Ania wasn’t at home either. Chester loved being sociable and only wandered off on his own when there was nobody around.
Through the window I could see Ania’s easel and pots of charcoal on the back porch, so she probably hadn’t gone anywhere far. Maybe she’d just popped out to the shops. I made myself a sandwich, because I hadn’t eaten any pancakes at Gem’s, and I sat out at the front waiting for her return.
Ania’s front garden was almost worse than the jungle had been, if that was possible, but the amazing thing was that, despite the weeds, I could tell that it had once been beautiful. Deep orange chrysanthemums stuck out from between the dense grass, the pink heads of dahlias were visible by the front door, and the fence was lined with molehills that had grown over with grass, so that they resembled Hobbit homes. They reminded me of Lord of the Rings and then of Julius, and suddenly, unexpectedly, the tears that I’d been holding back for so long began to stream down my face. I thrust my balled fists against my eyes, trying to stop them in the same way that I used to at nursery when Gem called me a cry baby, and then I sat there, my head hidden in my knees, still clutching my soggy cheese sandwich.
A small, soft hand touched my shoulder.
‘It’s going to be all right, you know. Things never stay bad for too long. Everything changes. That is the only certainty. And that is what’s so wonderful about this world,’ said Ania’s whispery voice, and then she put her arm around me. I let the sandwich drop and hugged her tightly.
‘I’m not who you think I am,’ I told her. ‘I’m a bad person,’ I sobbed into her beautiful silk blouse.
She didn’t tell me off. Instead, she pulled me closer.
‘I can’t say that I know everything about you, Katherine. I haven’t had the pleasure of getting to know you fully yet, but I can already say for certain that you aren’t a bad person.’
‘You don’t know that. I’ve done some things that I’m not proud of.’
Ania laughed, and I glanced up.
‘I’m only laughing because I cannot count the amount of times that I’ve said the very same thing to myself. I have often done things that I am not proud of.’
‘You?’
‘Absolutely. And I’ll tell you a secret – bad people rarely regret what they’ve done, which means that if you do, you aren’t a bad person.’
Now I spotted the portrait of Sommer. Ania must have propped it against the edge of the porch steps as she sat next to me.
‘This man knows it more than most people,’ she said. ‘I had to take him to the art shop, as there was a tiny tear in the canvas, there in the top right-hand corner. They managed to fix it, fortunately.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Come in with me,’ she said. ‘Or, if you want, you can wait here where you have the sun on your face. You’ve dropped your lunch, so I’ll make you a new sandwich with Polish ham. It will be wonderful, I tell you. I can almost taste it already.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, wiping my face.
‘Will you tell me what he did next?’ I asked, indicating Sommer’s portrait. ‘Did he come to check up on you at the bakery?’
‘He did. I’ll tell you everything. But first, I’ll bring lunch and you bring two chairs from the kitchen.’
We sat, looking out on to the road. The ham was delicious, and my appetite was back instantly.
‘So I’ve told you everything up to the part when I fell asleep in the loft. It was so warm up there, and the smell of baked bread was comforting. This bread,’ she said, indicating her sandwich, ‘is nothing in comparison. I must have slept for hours, because when I woke up, I could see that the light outside the window looked hazy. When I eventually came downstairs, I found Roman scrubbing the kitchen floor. I set to work helping him straightaway, even though he protested, and within a few hours we had cleaned the whole place. We talked as we worked and I asked him how he’d met Sommer.
‘“He came to me one evening,” he said. “Just as he did last night with you. I was frightened when I saw the uniform. I thought he’d come to tell me that I would have to shut down the bakery. But it turned out that he wanted the opposite. He asked me whether there was any way in which I could increase my bread production if he provided me with more flour – he wanted me to keep the arrangement a secret. I agreed. You see, he bought the extra bread from me and took it to feed the poor souls behind the wall.”
‘I told you before that I already felt safe with Sommer, but hearing this made me even more certain that he was a good man.
‘When I told Roman my story, he surprised me by saying, “You know, if Mila is there, he’s the man to help you find her. He’ll look her up on the lists,” said Roman, and put his big palm over mine. “I bet he’ll come back very soon and let you know if she’s there.”
‘“But even if she is, how will we ever get her out?” I asked him.
‘I knew about the height of the wall and the swarms of soldiers by the entrance. They made the rescue seem completely impossible.’
‘Couldn’t Sommer do something? He knew the soldiers who worked in the walled village, didn’t he?’ I asked, frustrated. ‘It couldn’t have been that difficult for him to get Mila out.’
‘But, Katherine, what about the commander? What about all the other soldiers? He couldn’t just take Mila without anybody asking questions. Remember that everybody was suspicious in those days. If they saw that Sommer was doing anything to help a girl who belonged to the “enemy”, he would be in trouble. Not just that, but Mila might be punished too. This is why what he had done so far for me was already very brave and very, very risky.’
‘But there had to be a way!’
‘Well, Roman had an idea. He revealed it when he was certain we were alone. “There’s an old underground sewer system that opens into the street next to the church,” he said. “The entrance at the other end is right in the centre of the ghetto. I found out about this because we had some drainage problems a few years ago. There was a blockage in the system and the whole street was flooded.”
‘“Are you saying that you could rescue somebody by taking them through the sewers?” I asked him. I shuddered to think about it.
‘“It’s the only possible route. There’s no way of getting over the wall. Some have attempted it, but it ended in catastrophe. I’ve also heard of people trying to dig tunnels, but there are soldiers patrolling the perimeter night and day. In all honesty, I can’t even be certain about the sewer system. It could also be patrolled, or worse – it could be blocked.”
‘I didn’t allow myself to think any more about this, because I didn’t even know if Mila was there. Waiting to hear news about her from Sommer, without being able to do anything, was one of the worst feelings in the world, Katherine.
‘Every night for the next few days, I thought that he might come back, but he didn’t. I had nightmares in which he turned up at the back door with a sad look on his face, and I wouldn’t even have to ask him to know why.’
‘Why wasn’t he coming?’
Ania raised her hand at my question, to show that I had to be patient.
‘We didn’t know, but on the third night, I’d had enough of waiting and I crept out in the middle of the night. There was thick sleet, but I didn’t let it stop me. I was on a mission to inspect the sewers. I needed to know whether Roman was right about this being a possible route. I realised how dangerous this trip was, as there was a real chance that there were soldiers on secret patrol of the entrance. I walked as quickly as I could, and avoided street lamps completely, scared that I would be seen.
‘When I got to the square outside the church, it took me almost half an hour to find the round drain cover that Roman had mentioned – it was so well-hidden under the mounds of dirty snow. Then it
took all my strength to lift it. There were iron steps beneath, which led into the sewers below.’
‘But what if something had happened to you?’ I said. ‘What if you’d slipped and fallen in, or if a soldier had found you? Nobody knew where you were, did they?’
‘You’re completely right. It was the most risky thing I had ever done, well – maybe except jumping from the train,’ she said, smiling. ‘Still, I forced myself to go down those steps. It was even colder there than in the street, and it was pitch black. As soon as my feet felt the ground, there was a gust of wind which seemed to blow right through me. This was a good sign because it showed that the system wasn’t blocked. I had taken Roman’s torch with me, but the light from it was very, very weak. I could see maybe two metres in front of my face. The place was wet through. Every time I breathed out, there was a loud, echoing whisper.
‘I walked on, although I could no longer feel my toes and I had to put my bare hands on the walls of the tunnel to stop myself from slipping on the ice. It felt as though I was walking for days, but really it was probably no more than fifteen minutes before I saw light spilling out ahead – the second exit. That was when I heard voices. They were speaking in my language, and I couldn’t hear all the words, but I somehow knew that they belonged to the people beyond the wall. That was enough for me. I breathed out. I was sure now that Roman had been right and that the route could work.’
‘Amazing. Did you tell Roman?’
‘No. I was too scared. But two nights after my journey into the sewer, I was closing the trapdoor to the loft when I heard the knock. I climbed back down and waited for Roman to answer. And, just as in my nightmare, Sommer came in and his face was filled with worry. I felt instantly sick. I wanted to push him back into the snow and shut the door. I remember wishing that he wouldn’t open his mouth so that I would never hear those terrible words. But he did open it, and he didn’t say what I expected him to say.
‘“Ania, your friend is there. She’s in the ghetto. She’s… she’s not well, I’m afraid. She’s not well. She’s got a severe case of typhus. She may not…”
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