The Search

by Maureen Myant

  Two hours later and Jan thinks he’ll have to give himself up. He’s giddy with heat, fatigue and hunger, his calf muscle has gone into a spasm. If he doesn’t move soon, he’s going to scream. The woman left about an hour ago, telling the man not to be long. Jan thinks the man is writing. He was the last time he peeped.

  A movement in the room, could the man be leaving at last? Jan holds his breath. Yes, he’s going, clearing up for the day: papers rustling, drawers closing, a pen slapped down on the desk, finally the blissful sound of the door opening. Jan bites his lip to stop the cheer that’s rising. Even after the door closes, he waits for five minutes, counting every second.

  The seconds pass, and he decides it is safe to move. There’s still a chance that it’s a trap and the soldier is actually in the room, calling Jan’s bluff. Jan doesn’t really believe this, because there’s no reason for the soldier to suspect anything, but the doubt lingers, so he won’t take a chance. He moves his head to the right until it reaches the edge of the curtain and peeps round… Nothing to be seen. Carefully, he edges his whole body along, moves out into the open, bracing himself for the angry shout. Still nothing.

  He’s out in the middle of the room, exposed. The breeze from the open window catches the pile of paper on the desk. One of the sheets floats down onto the floor; Jan’s heart misses a beat at the unexpected movement. He spins round, laughs when he sees what frightened him. But time is passing, and the soldier could return at any second. He must see what is in his sister’s file. It would be too dangerous to take it, for if he is caught with it… who knows what might happen. He takes the papers out of his pocket, unfolds them and immediately feels sick. They’re all in German. Well of course they are; what else did he expect? Jan peers at the strange print. He can’t read the print. Damn – he can’t understand a word. Pawel will be able to decipher it. He’s always moaning about how easily he’s picked up the language even though he hasn’t been trying, has no desire to speak it. There’s nothing for it. He’ll have to take the papers and hope they won’t be missed. He puts them back in his pocket, glancing at the filing cabinet, wondering if he should hide the empty file. What the hell, he takes it out of the drawer and stuffs it at the back, out of sight. With any luck they won’t even look for it. After all, his sister has gone, so why should they want her file?

  He crosses to the door, grasps the handle and pulls. It’s locked. Dear God. He tries again; his hands are sweaty, maybe he just isn’t gripping it properly. No – it doesn’t move. He’s trapped. His stomach twists, Christ, surely he’s not going to be sick. Not after all he’s been through. Take a deep breath, calm down. There must be a way out of here… the window.

  There are two windows in the room. The open one faces the front of the house. Jan runs over to it, looks out; it’s too exposed. Immediately below, there’s a driveway where cars sweep up at all hours; it’s also overlooked by a room where the women often sit and chat. He can’t go down that way. The other window is closed; he tries to open it, struggling for several minutes before it gives way. Jan sticks his head through, breathing in the fresher air.

  Although it’s much less exposed here, it’s still a long way down, maybe as much as twenty feet. Jan thinks back to the drop from his bedroom window, which he made all those months ago, a lifetime it seems like, and knows he’d break a leg or an arm on this drop. It’s much further than anything he’s tried before. If he had a rope…

  Damn it. He’s done for. But, wait… the drainpipe; it’s about a yard away from the window… risky, but he’ll have to chance it. He should be able to stretch across.

  Jan squeezes through the open window and stands on the ledge. He holds on to the stone mullion, stretching out his right hand as far as he dares; it’s nowhere near the drainpipe. Swallowing hard he tries again. A little nearer, but still too far, maybe six inches short. Jan takes a deep breath to calm down, stands for a moment on the ledge wondering what to do. He looks down and catches sight of the ground so far below and sways. Jesus! This isn’t the time to develop a fear of heights. He is not afraid of heights. He is not afraid. Thinks of all the trees he’s climbed, much higher than this. Takes a deep breath, looks again. This time the ground doesn’t sway up to meet him. Jan notes how the ledge extends several inches beyond the edge of the window. Could it be enough to make up the gap? It’s narrow, perhaps only five inches wide. No room for error. He trails his right foot along to the very end of the ledge, begins to put his weight on it. It moves. A chunk breaks off and falls to the ground. Jan feels the movement beneath his foot and grabs the mullion, stone scraping his fingernails, experiencing a horrible lurch as he thinks he too will fall. But no, he manages to steady himself, his fingers gripping crevices in the masonry. The stone crashes to the ground – impossible that no one should hear it and come to see what has happened. Jan waits to be discovered, counts once more the seconds as they merge into minutes. Five minutes pass, no one comes to see what’s going on. Safe to try again. He’s more wary this time, and there’s less room to spare. Feels his way along until he’s at the very edge with nowhere to go but empty space. Nothing for it but to try. If he fails he’s dead, but he’s beyond caring now. He’s tired, ravenous, desperately thirsty. Jan launches himself to the right and grabs the drainpipe. He’s done it. Can’t believe he isn’t lying dead or injured on the ground. Slides down, legs shaking so much he can’t stand when he reaches the bottom. Lies on the mossy cobblestones, worn out, trying not to cry.

  A few moments later, he scrambles to his feet. As he walks towards the kitchen, the siren sounds for supper. Jan runs to join the others, praying he hasn’t been missed.

  ‌8

  It’s a bright night, the moon full and low. The stars are so thick there are patches of sky that are almost white. It’s like when it begins to snow and the snow covers only parts of the ground. Jan is at one of the windows of his dormitory. He never tires of looking at the stars. When he was little, his father had taught him how to recognize some of the constellations. It was always easy to pick them out when his father was beside him to help. Now, alone, it’s not so simple. Jan bows his head. It’s so hard to think of his family and what has happened to them. Sometimes he thinks it’s a dream, and he’ll wake up safe at home one morning. He tried to explain that to Pawel once, and Pawel had looked at him in scorn.

  “What rubbish. The sooner you learn that this is real, the better for you.”

  Jan was sad at this. He’d hoped they could share in this fantasy, hoped that someone else would pretend it wasn’t real. He’d had dreams like this before, that hurt him, frightened him, but he had always woken up in the end, and he wanted to believe that this too could end with everything being better once more. Deep down, though, he knew Pawel was right, and that he had to face up to reality – and most times he could, but sometimes…

  A cloud passes over the moon, pale-grey. It’s the first Jan’s seen for weeks; the spring weather has been surprisingly hot and dry. Now at last, it’s cool, cold really, and he shivers and returns to bed. Under the blanket he huddles into a ball, his hands in his armpits trying to warm himself. He thinks of the papers under his mattress that he knows will tell him where Lena is. It’s comforting to have something good to think about for a change. His eyes close, and in seconds he drops off, living a dream where he is once more at home and his parents are there to scold him.

  Jan’s face is wet with tears when he wakes early to the sound of birdsong in the tree outside the window. He wipes them away with the edge of the sheet. He’d die rather than let the women see he’s been crying. It’s not time to get up yet; everyone else is asleep. He takes out the papers from beneath the mattress and tries again to read them, but he can’t. It’s the writing. He’s never been good at reading handwriting, and this is so strange compared to the way he was taught. Shaking his head, he puts them aside and waits for the bell that tells them it’s time to get up.

  It’s mid-morning when the children are called to the front of the house. Th
e officer, whose room Jan now knows so well, is there with Pawel at his side. Pawel is the colour of the porridge they are served for breakfast. The officer pushes him to his knees and addresses the little assembly of children. He speaks quickly in an accent that’s difficult to follow, but they get the gist. This lowly boy, disgusting animal, played a trick, and for that he will be treated like an animal. For the next two days he will be chained up in the garden and his food will be left in a dog bowl for him to eat like the animal he is. Jan bows his head. He can’t bear to look at Pawel. This is all his fault. He should tell them, take his punishment. When they are told to look on, he does so and mouths sorry to Pawel, who flicks his eyes to show he understands.

  The two days pass, and Pawel is allowed to join them once more. Jan tries to get him alone, but the other Polish children are always with him, comforting him, passing him scraps of food they saved, for Pawel hasn’t eaten for the two days he’s been in chains. He refused to touch the food and water left for him in dog bowls. For this he has become a hero. They want to know why he played the trick on the officer, but he won’t tell them. Jan watches all this from a distance, happy to wait for a quiet time when they can talk.

  “You all right?” Pawel is beside him as they wash the evening dishes.

  Jan nods. “And you?”

  “Take more than that to knock the stuffing out of me.”

  “I’m so sorry,” whispers Jan.

  “Don’t worry. I’m fine.” Pawel scrubs at a pot. “Did you get what you wanted?”

  “Yes. It’s upstairs, underneath my mattress.”

  “Thank Christ! I wouldn’t want to go through that again. What does it say?”

  Jan looked at him. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I was hoping you’d be able to help me.”

  “You chancer,” Pawel flicks him with some of the dirty dishwater, and they laugh, Jan harder than he has for some time. He’s so relieved Pawel doesn’t hate him.

  Upstairs, in the half hour they have to themselves before bed, they find a corner away from the others and pore over the papers. Jan can barely control himself. He wants to know every word that Pawel is reading. Pawel is impatient with him, and tells him to find something else to do, because he’s just holding him back. Jan sits on his hands so he won’t flap, bites his tongue so he can’t speak. At last Pawel is ready.

  “This paper,” he waves a creased sheet in front of him, “this is a letter of application to an adoption agency. It’s from a couple in Southern Germany. Here’s the address,” he reads it out, “Grunfeld Farm, Seeligstadt, near Dresden. Memorize it, because we’ll have to get rid of these papers before they find them on us.”

  “And the rest? What do they say?”

  “This is a form filled in by the couple. It tells you their names, dates of birth, when they got married, the names of their children and so on. This one is a copy of a letter to the couple. It tells them that they will be sent a little girl, Helena Schussel.”

  “But that’s not my sister!”

  “They must have changed her name to make her sound German. In the letter they say that she is an orphan from the north of Germany, Hamburg. Her father was a soldier who died on the Eastern Front, and her mother when a bomb dropped on her house. Burnt to death, it says here.”

  Jan gapes at him. He cannot believe they would change his sister into a German.

  “I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” says Pawel. “You know that’s what they’ve got planned for us all, or at least for the very young ones. For older ones like me…” He stops.

  “What? What are they planning?”

  “I don’t think anyone will adopt me. Not that I want to be adopted, you understand. But I’m too old. And soon you will be too. Couples like this, they want younger children, easier to manage. No, I think they’ll send us to join the army as soon as we’re old enough.”

  Jan is finding it difficult to breathe. He thinks of the soldiers and police he saw in his village, what they did to the men. Is this what is in store for him? A brutal existence of following harsh orders. It’s unbearable. He won’t do it, and he knows what will happen then. Certain death.

  “But I tell you what, Jan… I’m not going to wait around to find out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s time to move on. You’re going aren’t you? After your sister?”

  Of course he is. Since he realized Lena was gone, his only thought has been to find her. He knows it will be risky; even if he does find her they will be in an alien land, friendless, with no one to tell them how to get home, if they have a home to go to. Yet he has to do this. He can’t live like this, waiting for someone to come and take him to a strange home, destroying any chance of him ever seeing his family again. And the other option, he can’t bear to think of that. He looks at Pawel and nods.

  Pawel punches the air in triumph. “I knew it! We will go together. It’ll be safer that way.”

  Jan is overwhelmed by the relief that sweeps over him. Pawel is older and stronger, can speak German better, if he puts his mind to it. “When?” he says.

  “As soon as possible. I don’t want to stay a moment longer than I have to, but not immediately, because I think we should take a little time to get ready.”

  “You mean for food and things like that?”

  “Exactly. We’ll need to save rations for our journey. And money – we’ll need to try to steal some.”

  Jan pulls a face. It won’t be easy to get money for they are given none at all. There is money in the building, but it is well guarded. “Can’t we do without it?”

  “No. Even if we save our rations for a week they won’t last that long when we’re travelling. We’ll need money to buy food, and perhaps to buy a train ticket, because who knows how far away your Lena is?”

  This is true and, worse, although they know they’re in Germany, they don’t know what part. There’s a map in the room that’s used as a classroom. Somehow they will have to find our where they are, and where Freidorf is, so that they have some knowledge of what lies ahead of them. As they plan what to do, Jan feels a surge of happiness, the first he has felt during waking hours since that terrible day in June, smiles as Pawel outlines some wild plans for their escape.

  “I’m so happy you’re coming,” he says to Pawel.

  “Not as happy as I am. I can’t wait to get out of this place.”

  “Ssh, there’s someone coming.” They stuff the papers behind a radiator which, judging by the dust there, no one has touched for many years, and run back to their beds. When the woman comes in to shout orders at them, all she sees are two boys resting on their beds.

  ‌9

  Gisela watches the child playing in a corner with a doll. The sun shines through the window – which is polished so clean the glass is invisible – and catches the golden lights in her hair. She’s never seen such hair. Helga, pretty as she was, had dark hair. Truth be told, it was mouse-coloured, dull. Sometimes when the sun shone on it you could see a reddish glint, but mainly it soaked up light without reflecting it back. Gisela could look at this child’s hair for hours, the way it sparkles and shifts, the soft bounce of the curls. She understands now the obsession that begot tales such as Rapunzel, and almost comprehends the Führer’s infatuation with Nordic looks. She pushes the Führer out of her mind. She doesn’t like to think of him for he says things that she thinks are wrong, evil even. They’re not in line with what she learnt at school about everyone being equal in the eyes of God. And she doesn’t like what is happening to the Jews. True, she doesn’t care for them much, but they never harmed her, and she doesn’t see why they should be taken away to work camps. People should be paid for their work, not treated like slaves.

  “Helena,” she says, her voice low so as not to frighten her. The child is nervy, highly strung. Poor little thing, to have lost both parents so young. Helena looks at her, her blue eyes open wide, but doesn’t reply. “Come here, Liebchen.”

  The child puts down the doll
and approaches Gisela. She stands in front of her, hands at her side, unmoving. You’d almost think the child had been drilled in some way. It isn’t natural the way she stands to attention, rigid as a soldier. Gisela puts out a hand to the girl’s hair. Helena flinches away like she always does. She’s like a little scared animal – a rabbit or a deer perhaps – that wants to be near people, but hasn’t learnt to trust them yet. Gisela knows she must be patient with her, and she moves slowly. Helena allows Gisela to touch her hair. It’s as soft as duck down. Gisela has never felt hair like it. Her own hair is thick, wiry, and feels like the bristles of a shaving brush. She sighs. She could play with this hair for hours, but she is aware of Helena’s discomfort, and so she lets her return to her doll.

  Later, when Helena is asleep in bed, Gisela sits in her chair by the kitchen range and sews. She is making a dress for the child. The poor soul arrived wearing a brown shapeless shift and wooden clogs that pinched her feet. Underneath the shift there was a pretty rose-patterned garment that looked like a nightdress. Gisela tried to take it from her, but Helena howled as if she was being murdered. Only after many soft words did the child allow her to take it and wash it, and then she put it on again as soon as it was dry. Gisela vowed to make her pretty dresses to replace the brown shift, but it was many weeks before she managed to get into town to buy some suitable material. There were Helga’s old dresses, but Gisela couldn’t cut them up to make them into smaller ones that would fit Helena. Not yet.

  She’s pleased with the material she found in Heidelberg, a blue cotton with white stripes, cheerful and bright. Another evening’s work and it should be finished. She can’t wait to see Helena’s face when she gives it to her. Gisela works harder, spurred on by this thought. The light is dim, and she screws up her eyes to see better, but she’s tired and, after pricking her finger for the third time, she puts the dress aside. Friedrich is reading on the other side of the fire. He looks up.