Maybe

by Morris Gleitzman

  ‘I’ve missed you, Wilhelm,’ says Cyryl. ‘Where’s your little friend?’

  He sniggers and glances at the posts. He knows exactly what happened to Zelda.

  I want to hurt him. But two men are holding my arms tightly and I can’t.

  ‘My name’s not Wilhelm,’ I say to him. ‘It’s Felix.’

  No point using pretend names now. Four years ago, when I first met Cyryl, I needed to hide. Now I want them all to know the truth.

  ‘Her name wasn’t Violetta,’ I say to Cyryl. ‘It was Zelda. She was six, but she had the loving heart of a ten-year-old.’

  Just saying her name makes me feel weak with sadness. I can see that Cyryl doesn’t have a clue what a loving heart is.

  ‘Big tough Cyryl,’ I say to him. ‘Betraying a little girl to the Nazis. Did it make you feel proud? Watching them kill her.’

  Cyryl glances at the crowd around us who have gone quiet and are listening to this. He looks worried he might be in trouble. But nobody in the crowd tells him off because mobs don’t care.

  Most of this lot probably did similar things. With a smirk, Cyryl puts his face close to mine again.

  ‘What’s the big deal about a dead Jew?’ he says. ‘Who cares if she was six or sixty? There’s thousands of them in the forests around here. Good manure, that’s what I say. And if you can be bothered digging them up, rich pickings.’

  He holds his pudgy pink hand in front of my face. On his finger is a big gold ring with an eagle stamped on it.

  ‘You have to pull the gold out of their vermin teeth,’ says Cyryl. ‘But it’s worth it.’

  All I can move is my neck.

  I lunge forward, clamp my teeth round Cyryl’s finger and bite with all my strength.

  For Zelda. For Mum and Dad. For Genia and Barney and all the others.

  The ring is inside my mouth. So is warm liquid, sticky and salty. My teeth grate against bone.

  Cyryl is screaming.

  The men holding me are shouting.

  I keep biting. Until something hard smashes against my head. And again. Cyril drags his finger out of my mouth and I drop to the ground.

  Gabriek. Where’s Gabriek?

  Somebody starts kicking me.

  My eyes are shut but I know it’s Cyryl because his screaming gets shriller each time his foot thuds into my ribs and tummy.

  I hear my glasses being crushed against the cobblestones.

  Men are still yelling and big fingers are trying to push their way into my mouth.

  I realise the ring is still in there.

  They’re not having it. I keep my mouth closed. Hands go round my throat.

  ‘Get away from him,’ yells a voice.

  Even with all the pain in my head I know it’s Gabriek.

  I open my eyes. Gabriek is close enough for me to see him clearly. He pulls himself away from the hands holding him and grabs the man choking me and flings him aside.

  But another man raises a stick or a crowbar or something.

  ‘Gabriek,’ I croak.

  Too late. There’s a loud thud and Gabriek falls across me, heavy and limp.

  He doesn’t move.

  Then the choking man is back. It’s Mr Szynsky. He’s in a frenzy to get his son’s ring. I can tell he’ll remove part of my face if he has to.

  He can have the revolting ring. I just want him to leave me alone so I can look after Gabriek.

  Before I can get the ring out of my mouth, somebody else starts shouting.

  ‘Back away.’

  Which the mob ignores. Until they hear a gunshot. Then everyone freezes.

  Another gunshot.

  Anya?

  No, the voice is a man’s.

  I peer over Gabriek’s slumped shoulder. I can just make out a military officer at the edge of the crowd. He’s holding a pistol in the air. I can’t tell what his uniform is. I hope it’s not Russian or the Polish Secret Police or one of the other bad ones.

  ‘Back off,’ the officer yells again at the crowd.

  They do, slowly.

  The officer comes over, grabs Gabriek and pulls him to his feet. I’m relieved to see that after a bit of wobbling, Gabriek stays upright.

  I get up too, wobbly as well.

  ‘Let’s get you out of here,’ mutters the officer.

  He speaks very bad Polish, but I understand him. As my dizziness goes, I also recognise him. He’s the man from the truck that stopped earlier out on the road.

  Mr Szynsky steps in front of the officer.

  ‘I’m the mayor,’ says Mr Szynsky in the voice people use when they want to sound important. He points at me. ‘This vermin assaulted my son and robbed him.’

  I can hear Cyryl whimpering nearby.

  ‘You’re the mayor?’ says the officer.

  Mr Szynsky nods, giving the officer a haughty look and me a look of hatred. Which changes to a look of surprise when the officer puts the barrel of his pistol against Mr Szynsky’s forehead.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, your worship,’ says the officer in English. ‘I was hoping I’d find the joker in authority who allowed this mob to get out of control. You’re under arrest.’

  He says the last bit in Polish.

  Mr Szynsky stares at the officer, stunned and furious. He starts to say something about his brother-in-law being a government minister. But his voice is drowned out by the roar of an engine.

  A horn starts blaring.

  The officer’s truck is coming slowly towards us through the crowd.

  People scramble out of the way.

  When the truck gets close, I see that driving it is the woman who was travelling with the officer.

  ‘Get in,’ says the officer to me and Gabriek, his gun still pointing at Mr Szynsky’s head.

  Gabriek opens the back flap of the truck.

  All around us people are glaring and muttering. But they keep their distance.

  Except for one man, small and plump and red-faced, who steps out of the crowd. Even without my glasses I can see he’s got a rifle.

  I spit the ring into my hand.

  ‘Gabriek,’ I yell. ‘Look out.’

  The man fires, turns, and disappears into the crowd.

  The officer is on the ground.

  ‘Help me, Felix,’ yells Gabriek.

  He grabs the officer’s gun and points it at the mob, and tries to pick the officer up one-handed.

  I grab the officer’s other arm and we half lift and half drag him into the back of the truck.

  My head is spinning.

  For a crazy second I thought it was Zliv with the gun. Except the gunman didn’t look anything like a skinny version of Gogol. A small fat ex-Nazi more like.

  Plus Zliv never misses his target. If that was Zliv, I’d be the one lying here in the back of the truck with a bullet in me.

  ‘Drive,’ yells Gabriek to the woman.

  She doesn’t move. She’s sitting in the driver’s seat, staring at the half-unconscious officer, at the blood all over his legs.

  The crowd are shouting at us again and moving closer.

  ‘Drive,’ I yell at the woman in English, in case that’s all she understands.

  ‘Go,’ yells Gabriek, also in English, and his voice suddenly sounds strange and weak.

  I see why.

  The back of his shirt is sodden with blood.

  Which isn’t the officer’s blood. It’s coming from Gabriek’s head.

  The woman revs the engine.

  The truck lurches forward.

  There’s too much blood in here. I have to stop the bleeding.

  If only my head wasn’t throbbing so much.

  I try not to think about it. I wasn’t hit as hard as Gabriek. I’ll be fine. I have to be. We need to get away from here.

  Far away.

  if I ask her nicely, the woman will slow down. So this truck won’t bounce around so much. So I can stop all this bleeding.

  I crawl closer to the driv
er’s seat.

  ‘Not so fast,’ I yell.

  I forget to say it in English, but it doesn’t matter. The woman answers in Polish.

  ‘We have to go as quickly as we can,’ she shouts over her shoulder. ‘The hospital’s thirty miles away.’

  That’s too far. A human body only has about five litres of blood in it, which is ten litres total for Gabriek and the officer, and there’s already about three on the floor of the truck.

  ‘They both need medical attention now,’ I yell. ‘Urgently.’

  The woman doesn’t slow down.

  I yell at her that there’s no point going to a hospital if Gabriek and the officer die before we get there from all the bouncing.

  ‘Apply pressure to the wounds,’ she shouts. ‘Lots of pressure.’

  She’s stubborn and pig-headed.

  War can do that to people.

  The woman speeds up even more. The sudden jolt of acceleration sends me sliding backwards.

  Gabriek grabs me so I don’t roll out the back of the truck. His chest is bare because he’s taken his shirt off and wrapped it round his head.

  ‘Let me see,’ I say.

  I take a look underneath.

  The bruise on Gabriek’s head is huge, but the cut isn’t very deep. My hands are shaking from stress and bad truck suspension, but I manage to tie Gabriek’s shirt tighter round his head, which will slow the bleeding even more.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ says Gabriek. ‘It’s not me we have to worry about.’

  He points to the officer, who’s lying on the truck floor in a big puddle of blood, groaning.

  I slide over. I find the bullet hole in the officer’s trouser leg and pull the cloth away as gently as I can and peer inside.

  Even with the truck bouncing around and the canvas sides not letting much light in and me having to peer closely because I haven’t got my glasses, I can see the officer’s leg is bad.

  The bullet has gone through his thigh.

  From the amount of blood running out of the entry wound and also out of the exit hole on the other side, I’m guessing the bullet hit an artery or a major vein.

  Gabriek helps me with pressure. I clamp my hands on one side of the officer’s leg, Gabriek on the other side, squeezing as hard as we can.

  It’s not enough. Blood dribbles through our fingers.

  ‘Clean and heat,’ I say to Gabriek.

  He knows what that means.

  I’ve told him about the work I did with the partisans, helping Doctor Zajak.

  But that was in the forest, not in the back of a speeding truck with no medical equipment.

  I look around for some.

  At first all I can see is a tyre lever strapped to the floor next to a spare tyre. Doctor Zajak did some big operations with not much equipment, but even he couldn’t have stopped somebody from bleeding to death with a tyre lever.

  Suddenly I feel weak and dizzy.

  Which is only natural when you’ve been hit on the head and all your hopes and dreams for a safe happy life and possibly a regional university have been swept away by a vicious mob.

  Plus I’ve just had Cyryl Szynsky’s blood in my mouth, and that’s enough to make anyone feel ill.

  I tell myself to snap out of it. I peer around the back of the truck again. And see something behind the driver’s seat.

  The woman’s handbag.

  Perfect.

  I get Gabriek to put his hands on both sides of the officer’s leg.

  ‘Keep as much pressure there as you can,’ I say. I crawl to the front of the truck and grab the bag. I don’t ask the woman. She might not have heard about the high standard of medical care we gave the resistance fighters in the forest. She might think I’m just a kid who wants to muck around with her things.

  I drag the bag over to the officer and look inside. Excellent. Several of the things I was hoping for.

  A pair of nail scissors and a hanky and a scarf and a nail file. And a packet of cigarettes, which means there’ll be a lighter somewhere.

  Yes, here it is.

  ‘He’s losing too much blood,’ says Gabriek, squeezing the officer’s leg so hard I’m worried about him popping veins. In the officer’s leg and in his own head.

  Quickly I pull the scarf out of the bag, roll it up and wedge it into the officer’s mouth. Then I use the nail scissors to cut away the blood-sodden trousers from around the wound.

  The hole in the officer’s leg is quite big, but not big enough. I need to make it bigger so I can get my fingers inside and find the damaged vein.

  I grip the scissors more tightly.

  Oh no. I’ve got heat, but what about clean?

  I rummage in the bag again.

  At first all I find is a battered photograph frame with photos of little children tucked into it. Six or eight small faces.

  That’s strange, I think as I keep rummaging. The woman doesn’t look old enough to have that many children.

  Then I find what I’m looking for.

  Perfume. Anya told me once that perfume is basically just alcohol and smelly stuff. Alcohol is good for a clean.

  I pour some into the leg hole.

  The officer’s body jerks and he screams through the scarf. I’m glad Gabriek is holding him tight. From the look in the officer’s eyes, he’d kill me if he could. Patients get like that sometimes.

  I pour perfume onto the scissors, then start cutting the hole bigger.

  The officer screams into the scarf again.

  ‘What’s going on?’ yells the woman from the driver’s seat.

  ‘Lots of pressure,’ I shout, so she’ll think we’re still following her advice. ‘Keeping the pressure up.’

  The pressure is up alright. Gabriek’s fingers are white and my head is throbbing.

  Now that the hole in the officer’s leg is bigger, I can see the broken vein. I put perfume on my fingers, stick them into the hole and pinch the vein.

  The officer’s eyes go very big, then they close and suddenly he’s floppy and limp.

  ‘What’s happened?’ says Gabriek.

  I check the officer’s pulse with my other hand.

  ‘He’s OK,’ I say. ‘This is good. These sorts of operations are easier for patients when they faint.’

  Gabriek looks doubtful.

  ‘Heat,’ I say to him.

  Gabriek wraps the hanky from the bag around one end of the nail file. He starts heating the other end in the lighter flame.

  After a few seconds I take the nail file from him and carefully lower it into the leg hole and touch the glowing tip against the broken end of the officer’s vein. There’s a loud hiss and smoke and the smell of cooking meat.

  Yes.

  The blood at the end of the vein is bubbling and going solid.

  Doctor Zajak would be proud of me.

  No he wouldn’t. He’d see what I’ve forgotten to do and right now he’d be yelling at me.

  No tourniquet. Nothing strapped around the officer’s upper thigh to slow the blood flow to the wound so the end of the seared vein has a chance to harden and not leak.

  ‘Pressure,’ I yell at Gabriek and point to the place. Gabriek sees the problem. He puts his big hands around the officer’s thigh.

  I stand up and take my belt off and bend over and strap it tightly near Gabriek’s hands.

  Suddenly weakness and dizziness sweep over me even more than before.

  Stop it, I say to myself. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. The farm was just a silly dream. This is what’s really happening.

  The truck hits a hole in the road.

  I’m flung backwards.

  My head smashes into something and the last thing I see is a flash so bright it’s as if every farmhouse and every regional university in Poland is going up in flames.

  this voice I’m hearing is real. And maybe the pain I’m feeling in my head and the rest of my body is real too.

  Which means I’m not unconscious any more.
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br />   There were lots of other voices earlier, and lots of people prodding me, but it felt like I was dreaming most of that.

  This voice sounds real.

  ‘Felix,’ it says, fuzzy and blurred, as if someone is putting their lips too close to my ear.

  I keep my eyes shut so I can think.

  I feel like I’m in a soft bed, which should be safe.

  But when you go unconscious in wartime, or even soon after, you can’t be sure how much danger will be around when you wake up.

  Before I open my eyes I get ready.

  To fight. To run.

  Because memories are coming back.

  The truck. The blood.

  The mob in the town square.

  I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where Gabriek is. One thing I do know. We have to get as far away as we can from here.

  I clench my fists.

  When I was little I used to pray to the author of my favourite books. As I got older it felt silly, so I stopped. It doesn’t feel silly now. Not when I think about the people in the town square.

  ‘Felix,’ says the voice again, still fuzzy.

  Dear Richmal Crompton, I say silently. Please don’t let this person with her lips close to my ear be a friend of the local people who attacked us and hurt Gabriek. Please let her be the truck woman who helped us get away. The one with the handbag and lots of children.

  I open my eyes.

  It’s not the truck woman.

  ‘Felix, at last,’ says Anya, her lips still close to my ear. ‘Thank God. Are you alright?’

  I stare at Anya.

  She shouldn’t be here. She should be hiding in the woods.

  ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ says Anya, stepping back from my pillow.

  I don’t care how many.

  ‘Why aren’t you in the woods?’ I say.

  ‘They came and found me,’ says Anya.

  I blink, trying to see who she means. We’re in a big room, very glary. It’s like a Nazi room where they keep the lights very bright until you confess.

  I can just make out lots of blurred outlines of people who are whispering and hurrying around.

  Why can’t I see them better?

  Of course, my glasses. They got crushed in the town square.

  ‘Where’s Gabriek?’ I say to Anya.

  I try to sit up.

  Pain flashes through my head and insides.