In Their Mother's Footsteps

by Mary Wood

  Elka wished she could take some concrete proof back to London and make them realize it was all true. But she had tried, and all they said was that it was German propaganda.

  But she couldn’t give her mind to that at the moment. Jhona might be dead, and she couldn’t bear the thought of having lost him.

  ‘Why not go and lie down, Elka – get out of those wet clothes. We will inform you the moment we hear anything. You’re exhausted.’ She was able to rise, with Baruch’s help, though she was afraid of revealing too much weakness.

  ‘I will go and change, but I would rather stay up for a while. Just in case.’

  It had been four days now since they had left camp. The break in the rain heartened Elka. The light breeze and shifting rays of the sun battled with the clouds and showed signs of winning, as the mist lifted and the landscape gradually came into view. Soon it would clear the mountains. Elka feasted her eyes on the magnificence of it all, trying to let the promise of a nice day lift her spirits. It was difficult to do so, as no further news had come in and nerves were frayed. Tonight they would set off and return to camp. All hope would be lost. But for one more day she would keep it alive, for whoever was out there alone, trying to reach them.

  The farmer came out, dressed in his milking frock. His poor goats had been almost milked dry in an effort to keep his guests sustained. But he’d done a sterling job and they had been filled at every meal with fresh bread and cheese, washed down with milk.

  Elka looked away from him and across the terrain, her eyes seeking, her heart hoping. She thought she saw a shadow move. Not daring to call out, she waited. There it was again, so far in the distance there was no way of her knowing if it was friend or foe. Turning, she ran inside to alert Baruch.

  Despite the change in the weather, the grass was very wet beneath her body as she lay next to the others, gun at the ready. Sweat prickled her skin and vied with the dampness of the ground. Hope held court in her heart. But there were no further sightings of the figure.

  An hour passed. Whispers went back and forth, and all felt a nervous anxiety. ‘What should we do?’ ‘Should one of us skirt around the back of where the sighting was?’ ‘What if it was a German scout and he’s gone to alert the troops?’

  But Elka had other worries. ‘What if it is one of the escapees and they have collapsed down there?’

  Baruch looked over towards her. ‘Yes, that is a possibility. I will go.’

  ‘No, Baruch, let me. I’m highly skilled in the techniques of moving around without being seen. I’ll go.’

  To her surprise, Baruch agreed. He’d seen Elka in action and knew her capabilities, and if he worried about the emotional impact upon her, he didn’t show it.

  ‘We will cover you at all times. If it is an ambush, we are ready.’

  Elka nodded and crawled away from the group. Snake-like, she made it to the edge of the garden and into the longer grass. She could move more quickly from there. The figure had been about three hundred yards from here.

  A silence unnerved her. There weren’t even any birds tweeting. It was as if they sensed danger. What could be lurking out there, waiting for her? She prayed these fears would prove fruitless and that Jhona would be there – unhurt, but biding his time, wanting to approach the house under cover of darkness.

  She whistled, remembering a bird-call signal they had learned together.

  After a moment an answering call came.

  Jhona! My Jhona!

  She signalled once more, this time twice, to ask for confirmation that it was safe to approach, and listened once again for an answering call. It came, but it warned that it wasn’t safe. Now she knew it was Jhona, but what danger was he in? She had to move nearer to find out.

  She inched her way closer, with extreme care, her hand constantly touching her gun for reassurance. At last she came to a clearing not far from where she knew Jhona to be. Her heart thumped against her chest wall and her throat constricted. In the distance she could see a group of soldiers sitting in relaxed positions, as if taking a break. They were probably a party of trainees, for there were many in the mountains. Beating a retreat, she went back the way she’d come.

  Baruch took the news as she expected. ‘We will attack the soldiers. We can take advantage of the element of surprise.’

  She had to agree. Despite the danger to Jhona, and to all of them, they had a war to win, and wiping out a group of soldiers could only help that cause. The soldiers were very close and any minute might see Jhona and kill him; or they might see signs of there being more people in this house than normal and come to investigate. These thoughts, and the practical consideration of the extra ammunition they could loot for their own store, helped Elka justify the attack to herself.

  Once a strategy was in place, she advanced once more towards Jhona. When she was near enough, she gave the signal for an impending attack. His answer showed that he agreed. Her heart, mind and body longed just to run to him, but she stayed focused and returned to the house.

  There were so few of them to launch an attack that getting as near as they could, as stealthily as they could, and then charging at the gang of soldiers was their only option. They couldn’t spread out and attack from several fronts, as they would be too thin on the ground. Praying to every god out there, Elka loaded her rifle. Her hand-gun was already loaded.

  Baruch gave out grenades. Ammunition was stored at each safe house. This one, being a hill farm and made of wood, was built on stilts to level it. The space under the house was boarded in, and this created a huge hidden area where supplies could be safely put out of sight, as well as a place where anyone who needed to be hidden could stay. If it happened that the farm was raided and searched, it was unlikely that the secret trapdoor entrance would be discovered. Hidden under a rambling tea plant and to the side of the chicken coop, it was well disguised. Around the back of the house were stables where the farmer kept his donkeys. Here the rafters were false and hid a secret attic space.

  A smooth rock surface surrounded the house. This gave way to thick greenery that sloped down to a spot where a cluster of tall, majestic pine trees grew close together, on the next level of the mountain. Dark, ever-changing paths wove between the trees as they swayed as one in the breeze. It was here, in the undergrowth covering the tree roots, that Jhona was hiding.

  When they were ready, Elka led the way, crawling once more on her stomach through the greenery. Baruch, Karol and Gabriel did the same. The farmer’s herd of goats, his main source of income, roamed the slopes. Stubborn animals, they would protest loudly if disturbed, and often a goat had to be skirted as they made their way, inch by inch. The goats’ excrement couldn’t be avoided, and Elka wrinkled her nose as she wormed her way through clump after clump of it.

  When they passed the position where Elka knew Jhona was, she didn’t catch sight of him. She so wanted to, but wouldn’t let herself even sneak a glance. She knew he would join the rear and that a gun would be handed to him. Her eyes remained on the group of soldiers. Their laughter and joking carried on the wind.

  She ignored what they were saying. She had to. If she paid any attention to their light-hearted chat about their lives, it would undo her resolve. She had to think of these people as the vile enemy, who would kill in reprisal and starve people and burn them alive – atrocities that she knew the soldiers would carry out without a thought.

  The group waited now, crouching in the long grass of the downward slope, watching the soldiers. The low whistle signalling the attack came from Baruch. Each person pulled the pin of a grenade and threw it. The resulting explosions deafened her. Bodies danced hideously in the air, then fell to the ground; limbs followed independently.

  ‘Fire!’

  Any soldiers who still moved were gunned down. Soon there was stillness. Before her lay a massacre. She counted ten bodies: ten young lives over.

  A hand touched her shoulder. She turned and looked into a gaunt face with dry, sore lips. But embedded in that face were two bea
utiful dark eyes. ‘Jhona, my Jhona.’ His name came out on a sob.

  ‘Come with me, Elka. Leave to the others whatever pillaging has to be done. Come with me, darling.’

  She helped him all she could as they made their way to the house. The farmer was in a state of nerves. ‘You will all have to leave, immediately. Leave everything as it was. I will be suspected. Who ordered this raid, without telling me?’

  ‘Speak to Baruch when he comes back. Excuse us.’

  This felt hard and rude, but it was all Elka could say to him at the moment. Yes, they had compromised the farmer, but they had had no choice. Baruch would have a plan for making him safe, which she knew would entail making him disappear. His way of life as he knew it would be over.

  She helped Jhona to a chair. ‘You must eat, my darling.’

  ‘I can’t, not yet. Maybe give me a drink, though? Just water. My stomach can’t take anything else.’

  Once in her room, her heart bled. It took a long time for both of them to reach a point of control, as they wept and told each other as much of what had happened to them as they could bear to relate. But mostly they just lay on the bed and held each other, gently so as not to cause pain to Jhona, with their love flowing from one to the other.

  Jhona’s strength amazed Elka. He managed to get back to the camp. Each day he ate a little more and was getting stronger.

  The farmer and his wife had been helped to escape to their son’s house, deeper in the Tatra Mountains, where he ran an outpost for skiers. They would be safe there. They had never previously been brought to the attention of the Germans, so there was no damaging profile on them. Their house was ransacked and partly destroyed, to make it look as though it had stood empty for a long time. Some of the farmer’s goats and all of his chickens were killed and shared between them and the farmer himself, who took some on his journey to his son. The remaining goats were driven onto the mountain, where it was hoped they would fend for themselves.

  One night Jhona felt able to tell the story of the capture of Ephraim and Rafal.

  ‘We had already abandoned the car, because we knew it was well known and very distinctive. As we walked through a forest near Krakow, we came across a group of soldiers, much the same as the ones we just attacked. But these soldiers were alerted by our tread on the dead bracken beneath our feet and were ready for us. I spotted them just as they were going to attack. There was nothing to do but run – it was every man for himself. We had no defence, no weapons.’ His head flopped into his hands. ‘I – I suppose my superior training saved me. I was able to tap into my knowledge of escape and survival skills. I’d used many as we journeyed and I tried to teach Ephraim and Rafal, but they didn’t stand a chance. They were gunned down before they could get away. I was hunted for days, but I managed to keep one step ahead, setting traps that delayed them, stealing food, drinking from streams. All the time the deaths of those very brave men weighed on me, as I couldn’t have escaped without them.’

  Five days after returning to camp, a communication came in and at last Elka and Jhona were on their way back to Britain, the only place they could now call home.

  The journey was often harrowing. Both of them were physically and mentally weak, yet on arrival they had to go for a debriefing. All Elka wanted to do was spit in the faces of these superior beings who sat behind their desks and ordered others into the field.

  It was to a different London that they returned – one that was battered and broken. But that was only the buildings, not the spirit of the people. People talked to them as they walked out of the War Office. Strangers shook them by the hand, not because they had an inkling of who they were, but just because they were glad to be alive and in all likelihood could see the suffering etched on Elka’s and Jhona’s faces.

  Elka tried to latch onto that spirit and let it enter her as Brendan drove them home, where another ordeal awaited her. Brendan had broken the news of Ania’s death to Edith.

  Elka thought how beautiful her mother looked. Courage shone from her as she stood on the doorstep. Laurent was beside her, sitting in his wheelchair. Brendan must have called them to say they were on their way.

  Her mother’s face held a quiet pride. Her arms were outstretched and Elka ran into them. She felt her hair being stroked and heard gentle words. ‘My darling, you are my Ania and my Elka – I haven’t lost her.’

  Elka couldn’t find any words, but a peace came to her. She would make sure her mother knew Ania as well as she herself had known her. And with this came the resolve to stop addressing her as ‘Mother’. From now on, she would be ‘Mama’. Because that was who she was.

  EPILOGUE

  1946

  Lest We Forget

  30

  Edith & Elka

  St Barnabas Church, London, 1946 – A Final Goodbye and a New Beginning

  Edith stood in a cocoon of grief. Grief for the child she only had memories of lying swaddled in a blanket, passive and calm against her twin sister’s demanding wail. She had known then that the girls were very different characters and, as Edith listened to Elka as she stood in the pulpit and spoke of Ania, it seemed that this had continued. Though identical to look at, their characters had developed in different ways.

  Yet both had taken traits of hers: Elka strong-willed and determined to do things her way; Ania steady and studious.

  ‘We were always like one,’ Elka had told her. ‘Or rather, two halves of a whole. The differences in us bound us together just as much as the similarities.’

  Edith knew this was true. They were two halves of her.

  Light poured through the stained-glass windows of St Barnabas Church, throwing a kaleidoscope of colour onto the congregation. Edith looked around, from her stand at the pulpit. She was there as a support to Elka, whose voice shook as she gave a eulogy to her sister. But Edith’s mind wandered, unable to give her full attention to the words it would be painful for her to hear.

  A Jewish memorial service had already been held. This service was for so many of their loved ones – Ania being the main one. Edith had wanted to have a service to help Ania lay the ghosts of her life to rest, and to help herself find a peaceful place in her heart for them, something she couldn’t do while war raged and her pain cut so deeply. But she found, as she stood here, that although almost five years had gone by since Ania’s death, the hurt was still raw and ground into her. There was some respite, of course; and as Ada had once said to her, ‘It comes and goes in waves.’ It certainly did. But this service had opened up a tsunami.

  Her eyes rested on the dark strip on the chancel roof, testament to the brush with war that this church had suffered when an incendiary bomb hit it. Luckily it had failed to burn the church down – unlike Edith’s usual church, All Saints, which had been extensively damaged and remained closed, though plans for its restoration were afoot.

  In front of her stood what was left of her beloved family – a family whose heart had been ripped out by two world wars. Douglas sat clutching the hand of his wife Janine, with their son Thomas on his other side. They had a haunted look about them, as they were surely thinking of Henry, their beloved elder son and the joker of the family, who had been killed in France on D-Day two years ago. Her heart went out to them. As Henry’s lovely, smiling face came to her, Edith had to swallow hard. She mustn’t let go.

  Focusing again, she listened as Elka read from one of her letters from Ania: ‘My darling sister, I hope you have found our mama and are with her. Give her a hug from me and tell her that one day we will meet.’

  But we didn’t – oh, Ania, we didn’t!

  Edith looked over at Brendan, trying to shut herself off from the painful words. He smiled a ‘you can do this’ kind of smile. His had been a difficult job during the war, but he had done it with courage and dignity, although she knew that guilt had scarred him.

  Next to him sat Leah, looking so well and recovered from the trauma that she’d seen and been a big part of, during the liberation of her own country. An
d next to her sat Ginny and, on her left, her Norman. They, too, had been through a period of recuperation after escaping the torpedoing of their ship in 1943, when more than forty colleagues and patients had died.

  Next week would be a happy occasion in this very church, because these four brave young people would be sharing their vows in a double wedding.

  How proud Ada would have been of her son, Edith thought – for that is what Brendan was, even though he was not birthed by her. Dear Ada. Happy memories came to her of their friendship, and of the wonderful Jimmy’s Hope House that had emerged from it. There was now Ada’s Sanctuary, which housed and sheltered battered wives. Its aim was to give them strength and hope, and to try and make them realize they didn’t have to put up with being beaten, and that there was a safe place to go. Just as Ada had given Edith herself hope, when she was at her lowest and had come home from war, having lost her children.

  Laurent had supported her, too. There he was, as strong as ever, despite his disabilities. Her rock, her husband, her lover.

  Next to him sat Jay and Eloise with their daughters, Rose and Andria. Two beautiful young women who had missed out on a youth of dancing, doing the rounds of their coming-out year and, sadly, of finding a husband. But there was plenty of time. Life was coming back again, very slowly, and occasions of the kind at which the young met were once again being arranged by hopeful mothers.