The Winter Guest

by Pam Jenoff

  In the bedroom, the children began to stir. Michal rubbed his eyes as he stumbled into the kitchen, a still-groggy Karolina nestled around his neck. Twenty minutes later, they had assembled at the table for dinner. No one needed to be reminded of mealtimes now. The children watched, hopeful but resigned, as she scraped the bottom of the pot, each trying not to beg for an extra morsel. They ate, quickly and silently. Even Karolina had stopped crying when her few drops of sweet milk were gone. Dorie was scraping at a bit of old porridge on the edge of the table and then when she thought nobody was looking popped it in her mouth.

  Unable to watch them any longer, Ruth stood to clear the plates. Her eyes traveled to the calendar above the sink, marveling at how the days had blended together. How could she have forgotten Karolina’s birthday, which always came in such a rush after Christmas? They did not have even a small gift for her. She pulled the jar of honey from the cupboard, the last remaining bits barely visible through the glass.

  Ruth held it close to the stove, liquefying the thin coat of honey. She took a spoon and scraped the jar, holding it out to Dorie. Dorie paused for a split second uncertainly, as though it was a trick, then plunged the whole spoon into her mouth, eyes widening with glee. Ruth took another spoon, divided the rest of the contents between Michal and Karolina. The baby’s face looked strange and for a moment Helena wondered if she’d made a mistake and the unfamiliar rich taste would make the child ill. But she squealed with delight.

  Ruth looked down at the nearly empty jar, which called to her. One spoonful wasn’t going to keep them from starvation. She could not keep them safe here and was powerless to help them escape. But she could give them this. She scraped the jar and then plunged the spoon into her mouth, the sweetness mixing with the salt from the tears she could no longer stem.

  “Sto lat,” she said aloud to Karolina. May you live to be a hundred. It was the child’s second birthday.

  20

  Helena raced toward the chapel. It was bitterly cold now, the sky dark gray. Her breath rose in crystalline puffs, mixing with the falling snow. The few days since she had been to see Sam seemed a lifetime. She would have gone sooner, but sneaking out had proven impossible with the holiday. She recalled how the children had opened on Christmas Eve the small gifts she and Ruth had fashioned from whatever they could find around the house. Taking in the scene, she was flooded with guilt—it was a sham pretending to celebrate Christmas. But watching the children’s faces, she knew that the happiness it brought was good, a respite from the suffering and worry that threatened to deny them their childhood.

  She raised her feet higher to break through the ice that coated the ground, still puzzling over Ruth’s change of heart. It simply wasn’t like her sister to acquiesce. Had she finally lifted her head from the sand and seen just how bad things really were? It did not matter why Ruth had agreed to leave—the important fact was that she had done so. Helena imagined entering the chapel, telling Sam that they could go together now and have the life they planned. Would he be as happy about it as she was? She paused, considering. Making plans for a life together that was not possible was one thing, living out those fantasies quite another. Perhaps he would not want her for real.

  Helena shook off the doubt that nagged at her. There simply wasn’t time. She pressed forward and soon reached the chapel. She knocked and, not waiting for a response, pushed open the door. “Sam?” There was no response. Her heart fluttered slightly as she scanned the chapel to see if he was napping. He might have moved his sleeping place once more. But the floor was bare, the pile of brush he usually slept on scattered, as though someone had swept it away with a broom. Uneasiness licked at her stomach. The air was still and there was a strange musty smell she recognized from the day she had brought him here.

  The fire, she noticed, was out, a little clump of ash visible through the open grate. Sam must have gone for wood, she reasoned. She stepped outside, a low buzzing in her ears. “Sam?” she called again, forgetting in her haste to keep her voice low. The trees seemed to muffle her words into silence. She held her breath for one second, then another, waiting for the familiar response that would make everything okay. Nothing. Terror seized her. Her eyes scanned the ground, searching for tracks. But the snow was unbroken. No one had come or gone from here since the fresh snow had begun to fall hours earlier. A pile of stones she did not remember lay in a semicircle just by the door.

  Helena ran back inside. The cups and other small living items she’d given Sam were missing. The chapel looked as if no one had ever been there, and all that had happened these past weeks had been a figment of her imagination. Her photo, the one he had asked for, had been ripped from the spot on the wall near where Sam had once lain. A torn bit of paper, still stuck to the wall, was the only sign that anyone had been. Helena knew then that he was truly gone.

  She stood motionless, her mind whirring with confusion. Sam was gone. She wondered if he had left on his own, made the break for the border he had talked about. He would not, she felt certain, have up and gone without at least letting her know, despite her once asking him to do just that. No, someone had come here, without warning. It could have been the police, or even the Germans. She looked around the room more closely now. There were no signs of a struggle. But her skin prickled. Whoever had come might be back. She must go.

  Outside Helena paused, seeing him in the empty space before her. She turned back to the chapel, willing him to appear and run after her, as he had the day they had quarreled. But the door remained shut, and the windows dark. Her eyes stung with tears. She started quickly down the path toward home.

  When Helena reached the fork in the road she stopped. Sam had disappeared, and with him their only hope of escape. Perhaps she had been wrong to trust him. Perhaps he had reconsidered his feelings for her. Seeing his solemn face as he had recited marriage vows just days earlier, it hardly seemed possible. No, he would not have abandoned her. But where was he? She saw his face in her mind, but the setting behind him was a blur. Was he hurt, or even dead? She doubled over in anguish.

  A moment later, she straightened, swallowing back her pain. She had to try to find him, to know if he was all right. Alek, she decided, turning toward the route that led to Kraków. He had not been able to help Sam. But at least he might be able to tell her what to do.

  It was nearly midday when she reached the city, breathless from running. The snow had stopped but clouds hung low, obscuring the top of the castle. Helena did not bother to climb to the top of the hill to plan her route—there simply wasn’t time. Every passing minute meant that Sam might be farther away or in worse danger. Instead, she ran heedlessly across the wide railway bridge that spanned the river, footsteps clanging against metal and seeming to ricochet through the air.

  At the top of Grodzka Street, she forced herself to slow down and walk normally for fear of attracting attention. She looked in the direction of the Old City, considering. Alek might be at the café now, but picturing the German patrons who had stared at her with interest, she knew she should not go there. Wierzynek, she thought, remembering the fine restaurant where Alek worked.

  Wierzynek sat just above the market square, a two-story restaurant with a latticed iron balcony on the second floor and wide windows that swung inward to allow the fresh air on fine spring days. She hesitated outside the front door, smoothing her hair. Even if Poles were not now forbidden from dining there, she would not have dared enter the elegant establishment in such a state. She made her way around to the back of the restaurant where a truck sat idling. A moment later, a worker appeared, bobbling a stack of crates that rose higher than his head and gave off a sour smell. “Prosz˛e, pana,” Helena said.

  “Tak?” The crates wobbled precariously and Helena hoped that he would not be startled into dropping them.

  “I’m looking for Alek Landesberg.” It had not occurred to her until just that second that he might not work under
his own name.

  The man set down the crates. “Alek?” He shook his head. “He hasn’t turned up for work in a few days. Something about a sick relative. The boss says he’s going to let him go if he isn’t back soon.”

  “Thank you.” Walking hurriedly away, she considered the information. Though she had known him only briefly, it did not seem like Alek to miss the job he said was so valuable for obtaining information. Something was not right. Without thinking, she started toward Starowi´slna Street, the wide thoroughfare that would take her to the Jewish quarter.

  A few minutes later, the bustle of the city center gave way to the quiet desolation of Kazimierz. Here the cobblestones had been hastily cleared of snow, leaving a slick coating, and she navigated them carefully, trying not to fall.

  She reached Skawinska Street, pushed open the heavy door to the gmina and raced up the marble steps, her footsteps echoing eerily throughout the empty stairwell. The door to Pan Izakowicz’s office was open. She knocked. “Dzie´n dobry?” Silence greeted her. Her heart sank. She had hoped she might find him here, packing still. Some books remained on the shelves and the photographs still hung on the wall. But the piles of papers cleared from the desk and the menorah that had sat on the corner were gone.

  She sank to a chair, shaken. First Sam, then Alek and now Pan Izakowicz, too. It was as if the entire world had disappeared overnight.

  A sudden noise came from the corridor. Footsteps. Helena jumped up. What would happen to her if she was caught here? The door pushed open and a toothless man in a wide black hat, not much older than Izakowicz, stood before her. They stared at each other uncertainly and she could tell from the fear in his eyes that he was supposed to be in the ghetto. Had he somehow escaped or not yet gone?

  “I’m looking for Pan Izakowicz,” she said.

  “Why?” The man’s voice was protective.

  “I need to find someone and I think he can help.”

  “He isn’t here anymore.” Helena prayed he had not gotten into trouble for speaking with her about her mother. “They’ve closed the gmina.” Sooner than the six days the Germans had promised him. “So he’s in Podgórze now. Who are you trying to find?”

  She hesitated, wondering whether the man could be trusted. “Alek, his nephew. I was hoping he could help me with something.”

  She saw a glint of recognition in the man’s eyes. But then he shook his head. “He’s gone. To ground, I suspect, along with the rest of them.” Alek had died? Her stomach twisted. “Hiding in the woods, that is,” the man clarified. Helena exhaled. “Things have gotten very dangerous,” he continued. More dangerous did not seem possible to Helena, but the man’s grave voice left little room for doubt. “I doubt even Alek can help anyone now.” The man walked past her and took one of the photographs from the wall. Was he connected to the people in it? “I wouldn’t stay here long, if I were you,” he added before walking from the office.

  Helena raced down the stairs and back onto the street. Pan Izakowicz had been her last hope of finding Alek and for a moment she considered going to the ghetto. But if Alek was in hiding, no one—not even his uncle—would be able to find him. They were all gone, and with them her family’s only hope of escape.

  She stopped abruptly. The intersection ahead of her was blocked by two large jeeps. Her breathing stopped. Was it another aktion? No, there were no Jews left to arrest or kill anymore. Except her. Watching the police stop an ordinary pedestrian, Helena’s heart pounded. It was a checkpoint, one that she might have seen if she had taken the time to survey the city before coming down. Her identity would not be apparent from her kennkarte, but if she was detained for unauthorized travel...

  She ducked back against the building and headed in the other direction. At the corner she turned, and began walking blindly, taking a right and then a left turn, not caring which way she went, as long as it was away from the danger. A few minutes later, she stopped, leaning against one of the buildings to catch her breath. A drop of cold water fell from the roof overhead, running down her collar, icy against her neck. She was not quite certain which way she had gone, but there was something familiar about the street.

  The black market, she remembered, taking in the abandoned industrial building at the corner. She reached into her bag and her hand closed around the cold metal of the Kiddush cup. She had nearly forgotten it was there. Holding tightly to it, Helena started forward. She slipped in between the two buildings. The market was much the same as it had been the day she had come with Alek, the traders seemingly unperturbed by the police presence just streets away. Amid the silver merchants, Trojecki sat in the same place as days earlier, as if he had not moved.

  “You remember me?” she asked.

  The man eyed her coldly. “Don’t waste my time.”

  “I’m not. You said thirty, tak?” She bluffed the higher price, hoping he would not remember.

  He shook his head. “Price has gone down. Twenty-five.”

  She stood. “Twenty-seven.”

  He waved her back. “Fine.” He held out his hand.

  Helena pulled out the Kiddush cup, then hesitated once more. She did not want to part with the item and reject her past as her mother had done. But the children needed food. She had believed in Sam and Alek, trusted them. That was her first mistake. She was back to that place now, where she could only depend on herself for their survival.

  Helena waited until the merchant had passed her the money, then handed him the cup. Then she walked away quickly, the coins cold and heavy in her hand.

  21

  As she fed Karolina, Ruth watched her sister shovel coal into the stove, her movements leaden. When Helena finished, she did not shut the grate but stared blankly into the fire. Finally, Ruth crossed the room and closed the grate and put her hand on Helena’s shoulder gently. Helena did not respond. Instead, she stood and swept the fine coating of coal dust from the floor.

  It had been more than a month since Helena had returned shaken from her trip up the hill and confirmed in a whisper that she’d found the soldier gone. Sam, she’d called him. Ruth had not even known his name when she’d slept with him, though whether this made it better or worse she could not say. They had just sat down to dinner when Helena had come inside, snow covered and shaking. Ruth had watched her sister closely as she stood by the fire. Had Sam told her that she had been to the chapel? But as she drew near, she saw that Helena’s face was ash pale and gutted. Her mouth tugged downward with sadness, not the rage she surely would have felt if she had learned the truth.

  “What is it?” Ruth had asked, looking over her shoulder reflexively for any potential harm. She took stock of the children, making sure all were out of earshot.

  Helena blinked several times, then swiped at her eyes. It was the closest Ruth had ever come to seeing her sister cry, and she knew as Helena shook her head wordlessly that the soldier was gone.

  “Do you think he was taken?” she asked after the children had gone to bed.

  “I don’t know.” Helena had lifted her arms, palms turned plaintively upward. “Sam wouldn’t have just left. But there were no signs of a struggle. The chapel looked exactly like when he was there, as if he’d disappeared.”

  Ruth saw then the depth of despair in her sister’s eyes as she grappled with Sam’s leaving. Helena had believed, as Ruth had with Piotr, that Sam would never leave her, a notion that Ruth had wanted to dismiss as folly. Yet there had been something in Sam’s expression that told Ruth he really did love Helena, and that, unlike Piotr, he would not have left by choice. A mix of resentment and guilt washed over her—she knew it was her fault Sam had gone.

  Over the weeks that followed, Helena had become a shell of herself. It was as if her sorrow had manifested itself physically, causing her to lose weight and giving a gray pallor to her skin. Watching Helena now, Ruth’s guilt rose until it seemed she might drown. She
had not meant to hurt Helena like this. Her sister moved with a mechanical emptiness that Ruth recognized from her own days after Piotr had left. Helena had always been the practical one, though, with no time for what she called “sentimental nonsense.” It was hard to imagine her getting close to a man, much less risking everything for him or letting the loss of him destroy her—even a man like Sam, with his gentle touch and soft chocolate eyes.

  As she lifted Karolina from the high chair, Ruth saw Michal through the window, nearing the door with an armful of firewood that nearly reached his forehead, struggling to see over the massive stack. He stumbled under the weight and Ruth set down the baby and rushed to the door, flinging it open without stopping for her coat. “Here.” The roughness of the branches scratched her hands as she helped him to lower it to the ground. “So much wood,” she remarked.

  “I brought extra in case...” His eyes traveled uneasily over Ruth’s shoulder. The change in Helena’s demeanor, her listlessness and faded strength, had not gone unnoticed by the children, and certainly not by perceptive Michal, who surely feared Helena was deteriorating mentally as Mama had. “In case it snows more,” he finished finally. There was an undercurrent to his words that belied the deeper fears about Helena’s ability not only to keep functioning, but to help contribute to their survival. But his stated reason was also true—winter had clamped down suddenly, a heavy curtain of snow dropped from above without warning. One day the ground had been dark and muddy, and the next morning it was a sea of unbroken white, drifts piled high and heavy against the door. It seemed to snow each night after that.