Soon

by Morris Gleitzman

  There’s so much I want to say. About the Anya I once knew. Who didn’t ask pustules like Doctor Lipzyk for their forgiveness. Who stuck a gun in their mouth instead.

  But I don’t.

  We do what we have to do to survive.

  I have to stop pretending we can make things better. We can’t. The world is what it is. That couldn’t be clearer. Just look around.

  I made a vow to protect Anya, but I can’t.

  Maybe Doctor Lipzyk can.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’ll help you go back.’

  , I hope, I’ll get used to it this way.

  Not getting involved in other people’s business.

  Not taking unnecessary risks.

  Accepting the world the way it is and probably always has been.

  Look how much easier it is. Here we are, back on the train, heading for home. All it took was a handful of slightly battered silver knives and forks from Anya’s coat pockets. Once she’d brushed the river silt off them, the ticket inspector couldn’t have been more helpful. Even though we’re a bit damp and muddy.

  We even got seats.

  Much easier this way.

  So why can’t I accept that? Why am I sitting here about to explode?

  Simple.

  Anya is going back to a man who has no kindness in his soul or any of his major organs.

  Which medically and scientifically speaking is something a person should only do once they’ve had a chance to examine all the information.

  I lean across and whisper to Anya.

  ‘We need to stop the train at the next station,’ I say.

  ‘We can’t,’ she says. ‘It’s an express.’

  ‘We need to,’ I say. ‘Can you cause a fuss as we come into the station so I can pull the emergency cord without being seen?’

  Anya thinks about this.

  She looks at me again, and she must see how important this is, because she gives a nod.

  We’re coming into the station now.

  We’ve just passed the first sign.

  Dodoczne.

  I glance at Anya. Our eyes meet.

  She lets out a shriek and throws herself against the passengers next to her.

  ‘Oh God,’ she yells. ‘I’m having a baby. Help me, I’m having a baby.’

  The whole carriage stares at her, and a couple of people push towards her to try to help.

  While everyone’s attention is on her, I stand up and pull the cord.

  With a hiss of brakes, the train lurches to a stop.

  As I’d hoped, the train engineers are doing an inspection of every carriage. I know a bit about trains. In the war, Gabriek used to blow them up.

  Passengers are happily stretching their legs on the platform.

  Including the passengers from our carriage, who calmed down when I explained to them that Anya isn’t having her baby for months yet, but she gets a bit emotional when she thinks about the responsibilities ahead.

  ‘Come on,’ I say to her.

  We go down the platform to the ticket office.

  In the cubicle is an elderly man.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say to him. ‘Can I ask you some­thing about this district?’

  The ticket man gives me a look as if that’s the question he’d least like to be asked in the whole world. As if, ‘do you have any pimples on your bottom and can we see them?’ would be preferable.

  I carry on anyway.

  ‘Is there a hospital around here?’ I ask. ‘Or some other kind of medical building?’

  The man’s eyes narrow.

  ‘Are you being funny?’ he says.

  ‘No,’ I say, confused.

  Me and the man look at each other.

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’ he says.

  ‘No,’ says Anya crossly. ‘That’s why he asked.’

  ‘Not a hospital,’ says the man. ‘A Nazi laboratory. Where Nazi doctors did experiments on people who weren’t even sick. Cut them open while they were still alive. There, that’s more than you wanted to know, eh?’

  Actually, it’s exactly what I wanted to know.

  ‘Did a Doctor Lipzyk work there?’ I ask.

  Out of the corner of my eye I can see Anya frowning. She’s right, it is probably a crazy thing to ask. But sometimes you have to anyway.

  ‘No idea,’ says the man. ‘But they were all Nazis.Lipzyk sounds like a Polish name.’

  Anya and I glance at each other. She’s looking relieved. And it is possible that Doctor Lipzyk is interested in the work the Nazis did at Dodoczne for purely scientific reasons.

  ‘The chief medical officer up there was called Hermann Lederhaus,’ says the ticket man. ‘They never caught him. May he rot in hell with his leg muscles flapping.’

  ‘What did he look like?’ I ask.

  That’s worth asking too. Even though I’ve read how people can have their faces changed surgically if they have good medical connections.

  ‘Never met him,’ says the ticket man. ‘You had to be Jewish to have that pleasure.’

  Back on the train, we stay standing.

  We’re exhausted and we’d like to sit. A few kind people offer their seats to Anya. But we say no. If we stand here in the corridor with our heads close together, we can talk in private.

  I tell Anya the thought I had in the ticket office. About people getting their face changed if they have good medical connections.

  I’ve just remembered the man with the very bandaged head outside Doctor Lipzyk’s house. Those bandages need to be out of sight, that’s what Lipzyk said to him.

  ‘What if Lipzyk is a Nazi,’ I say, ‘ but he’s decided he doesn’t need to get his face changed? Because all the people he worked on in the laboratory are dead. And now everyone thinks he’s a respectable Polish doctor running an orphanage. But he still helps his Nazi friends by changing their faces.’

  Anya thinks about this.

  She looks doubtful.

  ‘I did see a couple of patients in the house,’ she says. ‘And they did have bandaged faces. But half the population of Europe have got war-damaged faces. Patients with bandaged faces don’t make a doctor a Nazi. Nor do a few photos.’

  We stare out of the train window for a while.

  ‘We need proof,’ I say.

  ‘Risky,’ says Anya. ‘If we’re wrong, me and my baby are out on the street.’

  And if we’re right, I tell her, she and her baby are in serious danger. It wasn’t just Jewish people the Nazis hated, they hated Slavic people as well. Lots of Russians are Slavic. If a Nazi discovers he’s got a Slavic baby in his house . . .

  Anya nods. She knows all this.

  For a fleeting moment I want to tell her to forget Lipzyk. To come and live with me and Gabriek.

  Then I remember Gogol.

  Anya and her baby wouldn’t be any safer with us.

  If he chooses, Lipzyk can make her child very safe and very comfortable. Whether or not he’s a Nazi. In a world where very few babies have either of those things.

  So this is Anya’s decision. I don’t pressure her with my feelings about Lipzyk. That if he’s a Nazi I want him to die.

  ‘OK,’ says Anya after staring out the window for a long time. ‘Let’s do it. Let’s find out for sure about Lipzyk. It’s what a good mother would do, right?’

  ‘I think so,’ I say.

  Anya takes a deep breath.

  ‘Scary,’ she says.

  ‘Probably best if we have some insurance,’ I say.

  Anya looks at me.

  ‘Insurance?’ she says.

  ‘I suggest Dimmi,’ I say.

  , I hope, I’ll find what I’m looking for.

  I close the door behind me and immediately I wish Doctor Lipzyk’s library wasn’t so big. My heart valves are knotted with anxiety. Too many shelves and not enough time.

  I do some slow breathing and listen carefully.

  No sounds of shouting or violence from any­where in the house.

  Anya must be doing a good
job. Telling Doctor Lipzyk the story we made up about our trip to Ukraine. How the purpose of it was to find a barn we’d heard about that’s full of precious old hidden paintings. Which we can bring back for Doctor Lipzyk if he wants them.

  It’s not a true story, but with a bit of luck it’s good enough to give me time.

  To do my medical research.

  To find the scientific evidence we need.

  I start hunting for Doctor Lipzyk’s real name.

  People often write their names in their books. Mum and Dad were always complaining about it when they bought second-hand books for their shop.

  If Doctor Lipzyk used to have a different name, perhaps he wrote it in his books back then.

  OK, it’s a long shot, but some of the greatest scientific discoveries in medical history have been long shots.

  As I look, book by book, shelf by shelf, I listen anxiously.

  Still no shouting.

  What’s this? A German name?

  No, it’s the name of a university.

  I search the whole room. Every shelf.

  Nothing.

  A few books have a small part of the first page cut away, which could be suspicious. But it might not. The books might be second hand. Mum and Dad used to cut the names out of their second-hand books.

  Then I have a thought. Maybe I don’t need to find his real name written down. Maybe there’s another way.

  I haven’t got my lock-picks any more, so I use two thin pieces of metal I snap off an ashtray on the desk to open the secret cupboard. I take out the Dodoczne photos and study each one closely. This is the second time I’ve looked at them, but it’s still very upsetting.

  I stick at it. Anya’s safety depends on it. These photos are a reminder of how much danger she and her baby could face in this house. Not all the poor people being mutilated in the laboratory are Jewish. Some of them look Russian.

  Photo after photo after horrible photo.

  And then, yes, there it is.

  In the background of a terrible photograph of a poor man trying to swim with no legs.

  A blurred figure in a Nazi uniform.

  But not that blurred.

  Doctor Lipzyk.

  He’s in three of the photographs.

  I have to move fast.

  I put them inside my shirt, run out of the house and peer down the street. In the distance are two figures. I can’t see if they’re the people I want them to be, so I just have to hope they are.

  No time to hang around to be sure. I don’t want to leave Anya on her own with Doctor Lipzyk. Not now I know who he really is.

  I pin one of the photos to the outside of the front door with a couple of rose thorns. Then I hurry back inside and down the hallway until I hear Anya and Doctor Lipzyk’s voices coming from a room.

  The door is open just a crack.

  I pause.

  I want to go in and grab Doctor Lipzyk and tell him I know what he’s done. Then I want to kill him.

  For Mum and Dad and Zelda and all the others.

  But I don’t.

  Not yet.

  I peek into the room. Anya and Doctor Lipzyk are sitting at a table in front of a fire. The room is a bit like the library, but it’s not a book room. The walls are covered with paintings. Paintings of love. Paintings of tender human goodness.

  Dimmi’s paintings.

  ‘I’ve listened to you enough,’ Doctor Lipzyk is saying to Anya. ‘No more. You disgust me, young lady. You disgust me with your polluted body and you disgust me with your silly stories and lies.’

  Anya is scowling. But underneath I can see how scared she is.

  I go in.

  ‘Felix,’ says Doctor Lipzyk.

  His mouth smiles but his eyes are like the crystal in his chandeliers.

  It can’t be easy for him, having a Jewish vermin and a future Slavic baby inside his house at the same time.

  ‘Hot chocolate?’ he asks.

  ‘No thanks,’ I say.

  ‘Of course not,’ says Doctor Lipzyk. ‘You’re a clever boy, Felix. You know that a doctor like me can give you something much better than hot chocolate.’

  He gets up, opens a big black leather medical bag and takes out a syringe. The syringe has a long needle and yellow liquid inside it.

  ‘The world is a broken and miserable place,’ says Doctor Lipzyk. ‘Disease all around us. In this syringe is what’s called a vaccination. One little jab, and both of you will be free of disease for ever.’

  I glance at Anya. She looks like she’s thinking the same as me.

  For Doctor Lipzyk, we’re the disease. So whatever is in that syringe definitely isn’t good protection.

  We could try to grab it from him, but one little jab and Doctor Lipzyk would be free of us for ever.

  I can see Anya is wishing her gun wasn’t in a river in Ukraine.

  Doctor Lipzyk goes over to the door and locks it.

  ‘Just a little precaution,’ he says, coming towards us. ‘Every doctor knows how much children hate needles.’

  I try to hear if there are any voices outside in the hallway.

  None.

  We need something to distract him. Something to take his mind off killing us, just for a couple of minutes.

  From inside my shirt I take one of the photos. My hands are trembling as I put it on the table.

  Face down. Better not to rush things.

  ‘What’s this?’ says Doctor Lipzyk.

  We all look at it. On the back of it we can see the word Dodoczne.

  ‘We’ve just been there,’ says Anya. ‘To Dodoczne.’

  Doctor Lipzyk’s eyes narrow very slightly.

  ‘So?’ he says.

  I turn the photograph over.

  Anya gasps.

  We look at Doctor Lipzyk in his Nazi uniform, standing very close to the man swimming in agony.

  Doctor Lipzyk tightens his grip on the syringe.

  ‘A photo,’ he says. ‘A photo proves nothing. It doesn’t begin to tell the whole story.’

  I put another Dodoczne photo, another horrible part of Doctor Lipzyk’s story, onto the table.

  Doctor Lipzyk doesn’t even look at it.

  ‘You children,’ he hisses. ‘You couldn’t possibly know the opportunities such a unique time gave to medical science. The discoveries that were made that will benefit humankind for ever.’

  Suddenly from the front garden I hear Dimmi swearing and threatening to do medical damage to something and Bolek trying to bring him into the house.

  Doctor Lipzyk grabs Anya.

  She struggles to get away from him.

  ‘Call yourself a doctor,’ she spits at him. ‘Felix has got more doctor in his little finger than you’ve got in your whole carcass.’

  Doctor Lipzyk raises the syringe. He’s going to plunge it straight through Anya’s jumper.

  I throw myself at him.

  He kicks me in the legs.

  I collapse, my eyes squeezed shut with the pain.

  But my ears are still working. From the hallway I hear an explosion of cursing and thumping.

  ‘Murdering Nazi vermin,’ roars an angry voice, and as my eyes clear, Dimmi smashes through the door like a convoy of trucks.

  There weren’t just paintings in Dimmi’s flat. There was a photo with a very sad inscription on the frame. Dimmi’s Jewish mother, killed by the Nazis.

  Dimmi’s hands clamp round Doctor Lipzyk’s throat. Doctor Lipzyk’s feet leave the carpet. And don’t come back down until the doctor finally chokes out an answer to the question Dimmi keeps yelling at him.

  ‘Lederhaus,’ croaks the doctor, his face the colour of blood. ‘If you know the answer, why are you putting me through this. I’m Doctor Hermann Lederhaus.’

  Anya is staring at him like she’s going to be sick.

  Doctor Lederhaus gets his breath back and sneers at her.

  ‘I can see what you’re thinking,’ he says. ‘Well, I’m not the only liar here, am I young lady? And if your child
finds out everything you’ve done, who’ll be the monster then?’

  Dimmi heaves Doctor Lederhaus into the air again until all that comes out of his throat is a gurgle.

  But the damage is done. I can see on Anya’s face what she’s feeling.

  She rushes out of the room.

  I start to go after her, then stop.

  Doctor Lederhaus’s face, with Dimmi’s hands still round his neck, is turning blue. In another minute he’ll be dead.

  I should be glad.

  But suddenly I’m not.

  Because if Mum and Dad and Zelda and Barney and Genia were still alive, I don’t think they’d want the world to be like it is now. Full of people still trying to solve every problem by killing each other. I think they’d want something better.

  I grab one of the paintings off the wall. It’s the one of the mother and child. I hold it in front of Dimmi’s face.

  His furious eyes focus on it.

  He recognises it.

  He drops the unconscious Doctor Lederhaus onto the carpet and hugs the painting to his chest lovingly.

  Anya stands in the hallway, under the chandelier, sobbing.

  I go to her and put my arms round her. She doesn’t move away.

  We stay silent.

  I want to tell her how nothing that happened to her was her fault. That none of it will stop her being a good parent. But I’m only thirteen and it’s not for me to say.

  It’s for her to say.

  She puts her arms round me and we hold each other for a long time.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispers.

  Above us a hundred candles burn brightly.

  I think of them as birthday candles for the child inside Anya.

  A hundred happy birthdays.

  With a bit of luck. And help.

  Now that’s worth hoping for.

  , I hope, we can untie Doctor Lederhaus.

  He’s struggling so much, I’m worried about the medical state of his wrists and ankles. Much more of this and they’ll be as chafed as his throat.

  I’m also worried about his heart and lungs and spleen. Dimmi and I are keeping our feelings under control, but I can’t say what’ll happen once Dimmi finishes stacking his paintings.

  Come on, Anya. Hurry back with the officials who put Nazis into small rooms.