by Emma Fraser
‘Try a little soup, Dominik,’ Irena coaxed. ‘Just for me.’ They couldn’t call him ‘boy’ so they had chosen a name to give to him.
But Dominik continued to stare at the ceiling, refusing to acknowledge her with so much as a glance. He had lost the will to live – she’d seen it before, mostly among the elderly patients who’d lost husbands or wives, even their whole families. They literally turned their faces to the wall until one day they slipped away. And this child was going the same way. All the medical care in the world wouldn’t keep him alive if he wouldn’t eat or drink.
She brushed a lock of hair from his face. How much longer could she do this? She should be in her fourth year of medical school. She should be looking after patients in a clean hospital with modern, up-to-date equipment. Instead, she was here, fumbling around with almost no equipment and only basic medicines. And she was so tired.
She gave herself a mental shake. There was no point thinking about what should be. She was here and she had to do the best she could with what she had.
In the meantime the patient in the bed next to Dominik needed a new bottle of saline.
‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she told the boy. As always there was no response.
But when she went to the store where the medical supplies were kept, she discovered they were almost out of saline. Yet only yesterday they had had plenty left. Concerned, she checked all the supplies. The bandages were low, the supply of sulphonamide definitely far less than it should be. She knew all the regimes the patients were on and there weren’t that many on the antibacterial agent at the moment. Someone was stealing from the store. Either for themselves or to sell on the black market. God damn the way this war made people behave.
She made up her mind. She’d see to her patient then go in search of Stanislaw or Henryk – the two doctors needed to know what was happening as soon as possible so they could put a stop to it. She returned to the ward and attached the fresh bottle of saline to the patient’s drip. Dominik had fallen asleep so she pulled the blanket up over his thin shoulders.
‘I’m going to find Dr Palka,’ she told the nurse. ‘I want to ask his advice about a patient.’
After stopping by her room to pick up her coat, Irena slipped outside. No one was supposed to be out after the curfew. The punishment for being caught could be a beating or worse.
The moonlight cast a ribbon of light on the darkened street but Henryk’s house was only a short distance from the hospital and, as long as she kept to the shadows, there was little likelihood of being spotted. Most of the soldiers would have already congregated in the village square to enjoy glasses of the best Polish vodka along with their expensive cigarettes. There were patrols on the streets, of course, but the sound of their boots would carry for miles on the still night air, giving her enough warning to duck into a doorway. Nevertheless, she could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears as she stole along the street.
Like all the houses, Henryk’s was in darkness. He and his family were probably asleep.
She crept up to the door and knocked softly before slipping inside. The embers of a fire cast a reddish glow over the small sitting room. The house was perfectly quiet.
She hesitated. Like all of them Henryk worked an eighteen hour day and sometimes more. But she had to alert him to the theft of the medical supplies. Who knew how much more would be missing by morning if she didn’t?
She tapped on the door she guessed was his bedroom. ‘Dr Palka! It is me, Irena. I’m sorry to wake you but I need to talk to you.’
A sound came from inside the room – the dull thud of feet landing on the floor – and a few moments later Henryk’s wife, Elena, opened the door. The flickering light from the candle she carried made her face look ghostly.
‘For goodness’ sake, lower your voice,’ she hissed.
‘I’m sorry. There is a patient at the hospital…’ she tailed off. Elena looked frightened.
‘I’ll not wake him,’ Elena said, closing the door behind her. ‘He needs his sleep. You must manage as best you can.’
‘I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t urgent. I have to speak to him.’ She made to step past Henryk’s wife, but Elena stretched her hands wide, barring her way.
‘Please, Elena. I promise you, it will only take a minute.’
Why was Henryk’s wife being so obstructive? It wasn’t as if Irena had ever come here in the night before. She must know it had to be urgent for Irena to risk being out after curfew.
But no one behaved the way you expected them to any more. Everyone was so frightened all the time.
A muffled crunch of boots came from outside and Elena and Irena froze.
They stared at each other in horrified silence as the sound came closer. Had a villager seen Irena and reported her to the soldiers?
Unable to move, she watched as the door opened, sagging with relief when she saw it was Henryk. He hurried into the room, closing the door behind him. He looked surprised and not at all pleased to see Irena. Elena stepped forward to take his coat. Henryk was carrying his medical bag, which he placed carefully on a chair before turning to his wife and raising his eyebrow.
‘Irena came to see you,’ Elena said. ‘I… I told her you were sleeping. I must not have noticed you going out.’ Her laugh sounded forced and unnatural to Irena’s ears and she had the distinct impression Elena was lying. When she woke up she would have noticed that her husband wasn’t in the bed beside her and in a house of this size, it was inconceivable that she wouldn’t have known her husband was out.
‘I came to tell you that someone has been taking supplies from the pharmacy store. All sorts of things – bottles of saline, bandages, sulphonamide – are missing.’
Elena darted an anxious glance at her husband.
Henryk grabbed Irena’s elbow. ‘You fool. You shouldn’t have come here. Were you followed?’
‘I don’t think so.’ She tried to pull her arm away but his grip was too strong.
Henryk glared at her. ‘Don’t think so? That’s not good enough.’
‘I’m sure I wasn’t.’ She tugged her arm away. ‘Tell me what this is about. Did you know about the missing supplies?’ He hadn’t seemed surprised when she’d told him. Her stomach churned. Was he taking them for his own purposes?
He raked a hand through his hair and turned back to his wife. ‘It’s all right, Elena. I know Irena’s father. He’s a man of unquestionable honour. His daughter would never put our lives in jeopardy.’ He faced Irena. ‘Would you? Because you must know I could never allow it.’
She shivered. This was a side of the normally affable Henryk she hadn’t seen before.
She lifted her chin and met his eyes. ‘If you’re selling medical supplies on the black market – it’s despicable. Worse still, you’re putting us all in danger.’ The German authorities insisted on a careful inventory of all drugs and medical supplies and if they found out someone was stealing them, reprisals would be swift – and brutal.
‘You think I’m stealing from the hospital?’ He glared at her in disbelief. Then his face softened. ‘I can see why you might.’
‘And are you?’
He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.
‘I will tell you what’s going on, but before I do I have to know you can keep your mouth shut. I have to know I can trust you.’
‘For God’s sake, Henryk, my brother and fiancé have probably given their lives for Poland. And you know my father – you know what he endured at the hands of the Nazis. How could you think I would betray my people or my country?’
Henryk studied her for a long moment, making up his mind. ‘Very well then, but you mustn’t breathe a word of what I’m about to tell you. Not to anyone – except Stanislaw. Do you understand? If you do, so help me, I’ll break your neck.’
Irena kept silent. She had said all she was going to say. Now it was up to him to decide how much he was prepared to trust her.
Elena moved the coffee pot onto the stove a
nd placed two mugs on the table. Then she disappeared back inside the bedroom, leaving them alone.
Henryk poured some of the thin brown liquid into the mugs and sat down at the table, indicating with a nod of his head that she should do the same. ‘You are correct about the supplies. But it is I – and Stanislaw – who have been “fiddling the books”, so to speak.’
When she started to speak he held up his hand. ‘Let me finish. Before you came, Dr Zumbach, an excellent doctor and a fine man, was in charge of the hospital. He was one of the first to be taken by the Germans and corralled with the rest of the Jews. The fence of that damn ghetto borders my back yard. It makes it a little difficult to ignore, don’t you think?’
Irena nodded. Some of the villagers even envied the Jews – said that they didn’t have to go to work camps like them.
‘Someone came through the fence a couple of months ago,’ Henryk continued. ‘He told me that Dr Zumbach was ill and that they didn’t know how to save him. He was the only doctor for all those people and without him they knew they didn’t have a chance. I went to see him. There is a place in the fence where a person can slip through and as long as he is careful and goes in the night…’ He shrugged. ‘Dr Zumbach had pneumonia. I did my best. It is cold there, Irena. They are without fuel to keep themselves warm and they have very little food. Conditions are not exactly conducive to recovery and Dr Zumbach died. Since then Stanislaw and I have been taking medical supplies – as much as we dare – and smuggling them inside the ghetto. We try to give them to only the most seriously ill, but to tell the truth that is most of them. Almost all of the younger, stronger men and women have been taken away. It is really only the elderly and the children and their mothers who are left.’
Irena felt light-headed with relief. She didn’t know what she would have done had Henryk been stealing for his own ends. To turn him in to the Nazis would have been unthinkable.
‘You must know you are risking your life.’
‘That is what Elena says. I didn’t want her to know. In these times it is more true than ever that what a person doesn’t know can’t hurt them.’ A wistful expression crossed his face. ‘But it is difficult to slip out of the marriage bed for hours at a time without a wife wanting to know where you are.’
‘The Nazis would kill her and your daughter too if they discover what you are doing.’
He spread his hands wide and shrugged. ‘What else can I do? I am a doctor. There are sick people who need me. With Dr Zumbach dead, there is no one else. We can’t stand by and do nothing.’
With his words an image of the slaughtered Jewish mother flashed into her head. ‘I could go,’ Irena said, before she was even aware she was going to say it. The time for standing back and doing nothing was over. And maybe, just maybe, she’d feel better for failing to help the woman and her child.
Her lips felt frozen and not just from the cold. ‘I have no family, apart from my father. I have no children. There’s no one to get hurt if they catch me.’ And it would reduce the time Henryk spent inside the ghetto and therefore the risk to him and his family.
She almost wanted him to say no. But she knew he wouldn’t refuse. She wasn’t qualified but she could be of some use. Joining the resistance and being involved in killing Nazis, however much she hated them, was impossible. But this she could do.
‘They will kill you if they find out. You mustn’t be in any doubt of that.’
She closed her eyes. God knew she didn’t want to die, but she’d made her decision.
‘I’m not. They might take me to one of their work camps one day anyway. I would rather die knowing I had done my part to help Poland.’
For the first time that night, he smiled. ‘Very well. The next time they need me, you can come too.’
Chapter 19
Aware that soon she would have to go behind the fence, Irena slept badly. Sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night, when she lay staring up at the ceiling, she wished she’d taken her father’s advice and left Poland.
It was almost a relief when Henryk came to see her in the laboratory one evening. ‘Our Jewish friends have sent a signal.’ He’d explained that the signal was either a piece of white cloth tied to the fence or, if there was an emergency during the night, a couple of flashes from a lit candle in a window. ‘I was going to go but our German friends have brought in a soldier with a suspected ruptured appendix. I have to open him up. You’ll have to go tonight.’
Her insides flipped. ‘With Stanislaw?’
Henryk shook his head. ‘The Nazi bastards are insisting he assists me. They’re probably worried I’ll let their comrade die if I’m on my own. They’re even insisting one of their officers is in theatre too. They’re also demanding we both stay with the patient through the night, so there’s no chance of either of us getting away later – at least not for long. I’m afraid that means you’ll have to go on your own.’
Irena’s mouth dried up. When she’d imagined going behind the fence she’d thought it would be with Stanislaw or Henryk. Not on her own. But no matter how terrified she was she couldn’t refuse.
Unable to speak, she nodded.
‘Good. Come to my house tonight, at one o’clock. One of us will try to slip away for a bit – say we have another emergency. If there are any soldiers patrolling, wait until it’s clear. Either me or Stanislaw will meet you there and show you the way in.’
Irena found her voice. ‘What should I bring?’
‘I’ll have a medical bag packed and ready for you with everything you’ll need – at least everything that can be found. If you’re not sure how to treat a patient, then do nothing. We will discuss his or her symptoms together in the morning and decide what is to be done.’
He leaned across and squeezed her shoulder. ‘You don’t have to go, you know. Neither Stanislaw nor I will think any less of you if you decide it is too dangerous.’
Perhaps not. But she would think less of herself. And in the end, that was what mattered.
‘I’ll be there,’ she said.
That night, alternating between fear and excitement, Irena let herself out of the heavy front door, wincing as it creaked. The cold sharp air made her catch her breath. The street was deserted, except for an emaciated alley cat rooting around for scraps.
She hurried towards Henryk’s house keeping to the shadows, and a few tense minutes later she was inside where she found Stanislaw waiting for her.
He was younger than Henryk, quieter, and as far as she knew, had never married.
‘You’re here!’ he said simply. ‘Come on, there’s no time to waste. I need to get you inside then I have to get back to the hospital before they notice I’m gone.’
The door to the bedroom was closed. Henryk’s wife and child must be asleep inside, or, more likely, keeping out of the way.
He studied her thoughtfully, nodding approval at her dark trousers and black belted coat, before tugging a black knitted hat from his pocket. ‘Put this on. Your hair is so blond it will stand out.’
Irena did as he asked and then followed him out of the back door and across Henryk’s back yard. Bending low, Stanislaw felt along the line of the fence until he found the spot he was looking for. Wasting no time, he removed some of the wooden slats and placed them on the ground. Behind the wooden fence was a steel one.
‘We have a hole cut here. When you come back through, one of the men will come with you and put the fence together again. But it is your responsibility to replace the slats of the fence from this side and make sure that it looks perfect. Do you understand?’
Irena nodded. Unlike the rest of the village, the ghetto was closely guarded, although Stanislaw had explained that most of the guards hung about the barricaded entrance at the front and made only a couple of tours of the perimeter throughout the course of the night.
A few moments later Stanislaw had unwound the steel loops that were keeping the fence together, exposing a gap large enough for a person to squeeze through. As they emerged on the
other side three men detached themselves from the shadows behind one of the houses and moved silently towards them.
‘This is Dr Kraszewska.’ Stanislaw introduced her in a whisper.
She wasn’t a doctor. Not yet. Perhaps not ever, but the people in the ghetto weren’t likely to worry about the finer points of her qualifications.
‘I have to leave you now,’ Stanislaw whispered to her. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be looked after from here on in. They’ll return you to the fence when you’ve finished and see you safely through.’ And with that he turned and disappeared back into the darkness.