by Sue Gee
‘Poland is not yet lost,
As long as we are alive,
We will take back with our sabre
What the enemy have taken from us …’
At the end, when they slowly stood up again, almost everyone was crying.
‘Did you pray for Tata?’ Jerzy asked as they came out, stiff with cold, on to the steps.
‘Sort of,’ said Anna. ‘Did you?’
‘I tried. I don’t know if … if I really can believe any more.’
On the corner of the street a group of German soldiers was watching the congregation come out, blowing into their hands.
‘Hope they freeze to death,’ he said loudly.
Teresa and Wiktoria came up behind them. ‘Come on, children, quickly.’
By January, they had all lost so much weight that their clothes hung loosely and hunger and the monotonous diet were fraying their nerves. Rationing had been introduced two weeks before Christmas, but there was little to buy with their cards. There was no fruit, few vegetables, only potatoes, potatoes. Teresa made potato soup, baked potatoes, potato cutlets and placki – potato cakes fried in oil, for there was no butter, though later the Germans introduced margarine. There were pulses, there was pasta; they ate endless bowls of soup. Each day they took it in turns to queue for the coarse dark bread which was now the only loaf you could buy.
‘It makes you fart,’ said Jerzy. ‘Only the Nazis could make bread that makes you fart.’
Occasionally they were able to get słonina from the butcher – pieces of salted bacon fat with the rind still on, and that did add flavour to the soups and dumplings. Anna dreamed of oranges, and juicy apples. She was getting spots. Restless and uneasy, she longed to be back at school, but even by February the gates were still closed.
In the first week of March, they had a visitor.
It was still bitterly cold, and they still spent most of their time in the kitchen. This morning they were using the last of the coal, the stove was almost out, and it wasn’t much warmer in here than in the sitting room, where the windows even now were partly boarded up. Putty and glass were like gold now, impossible to find except on the black market, and barely affordable then. Jerzy was in the sitting room, practising half-heartedly in the semi-darkness, from the kitchen, where she and Teresa were peeling potatoes, Anna heard the doorbell ring once, sharply, and Jerzy break off, and go to answer it. She looked at Teresa, who pursed her lips, shrugging.
‘I’d better go and see.’
Anna followed her out, and found her headmistress standing in the hall. She was panting a little beneath her coat and scarf; wet snow dripped from her boots.
‘Pani Jawicz!’ Anna stood uncertainly, then hurried across to her. If Pani Jawicz were here, stout and ordinary, she could be ordinary again. Perhaps school was starting – thank God. The boredom, the dreariness, of being shut up here!
Teresa was offering to take her coat, but it was a gesture only.
‘Thank you, my dear, but I’ll keep it on, this cold is terrible.’ She smiled at Anna’s eager face. ‘How are you all managing?’ She followed Jerzy down the corridor to the kitchen, where they all sat round the table like old friends. ‘Ah, that’s better. Now tell me – have you any news of the doctor?’
They told her about the postcard, the few lines.
‘We write to him,’ said Anna. ‘I write all the time, to this Kozielsk, but he never writes back.’
Jerzy got up and riddled the stove.
‘Tch, tch, tch.’ Pani Jawicz was shaking her head. ‘Such a good man, and you are not alone, my dears, we have many, many pupils in the same situation, waiting for news from their fathers.’ She leaned across the table and patted Anna’s hand. ‘You need something to take your minds off it, and besides, we cannot let you all sit about, learning nothing!’
Anna smiled, feeling better than she had for months. ‘Is school opening up again?’
‘Not … exactly. You don’t know what’s happened to the schools?’
‘What? What’s happening?’ Behind her, Jerzy had stopped raking the few remaining coals. He came over, and pulled out a chair.
‘They have been permanently closed,’ said Pani Jawicz. ‘In the primary schools, the German “authorities”’ – she pulled a face at the word –‘have forbidden the teaching of anything except arithmetic and the German language. As for the gimnazium and liceum – pupils of secondary age are to learn a trade, nothing more. You should be working towards your exams, both of you, but there is no question of your going back to school for that.’ She paused. ‘May I ask what you were reading last summer?’
Jerzy and Anna looked at each other. ‘Tata was reading us short stories by Sienkiewicz,’ Anna said slowly. ‘When we were on holiday. And I was reading A Tale of Two Cities.’
‘And did you finish them?’
‘No.’ The Sienkiewicz volume must still be somewhere in Tata’s study – perhaps it had never been unpacked from his bag.
‘That’s a pity,’ said Pani Jawicz, ‘because from now on they are banned.’
‘Banned?’
‘Sienkiewicz is banned. Mickiewicz is banned. You may take it that all Polish authors – and, I expect, all English ones, too – are now strictly forbidden. Almost all the textbooks at school have been impounded. It is forbidden to display pictures of any national hero, either – last week I spent the day in school taking down all the pictures: Chopin, Marie-Curie, Piłsudski, Paderewski, … I had to take down the map of Poland, too – you remember that large one in the assembly hall?’
‘Yes.’ Anna had sat underneath it scores of times. She thought of it being taken down, and handed over to some Nazi bureaucrat, leaving a dusty oblong on the wall. There would be shapes like that all through the school – the walls were filled with pictures from Polish history.
‘And naturally,’ said Pani Jawicz, ‘I had to take down the flag behind the dais.’
‘You gave it to them?’
‘I … put it away,’ she said, with an almost imperceptible smile. ‘So – you understand the situation. Education – Polish education – has been crushed. Officially, Anna, you may train as dressmaker. Or perhaps a cook. You would like that?’
She slowly shook her head, feeling a great lump in her throat.
‘And you, Jerzy –’ Pani Jawicz turned to him. ‘An electrician? A plumber? A mechanic?’
He shrugged, looking at the tablecloth.
‘They have closed the universities, the medical schools, the academies,’ Pani Jawicz said bitterly. ‘In Kraków, we understand, the professors have been imprisoned, perhaps even –’ She broke off. ‘So. You work, or you train for a trade. However – Jerzy, please, come and sit down, my dear, I haven’t come only to bring bad news.’ She lowered her voice as he came over and pulled out a chair. ‘Naturally, we are not putting up with this. We are setting up a network of schools – TON, we are calling it: Tajna Organizacja Nanczycielstwa, the Secret Schooling Organization, responsible to the Education Department of the Delegatura. All our staff are joining, so you will have the same teachers, Anna, for the same subjects – Pani Sokołowa for Latin, and so on – but you will be taught in their own homes. You will study in a small group, a komplet of perhaps five or six girls, and you will go to a different address each time, and arrive one by one. You understand why? You understand that you must be absolutely scrupulous in never discussing it, where you are to meet next, or who with, except in the teacher’s house?’
Anna looked at her. It felt extraordinary to have Pani Jawicz, whom she was used to seeing on a dais at assembly, firmly addressing the whole school, seated here at their kitchen table, talking almost in a whisper. Through a gap in a broken pane where the stuffed newspaper had come loose, a thin icy draught was playing on her neck, and she shivered.
‘I’ve frightened you?’ Pani Jawicz asked kindly. ‘You mustn’t be afraid, you must be brave. I’m sure that’s what your father would want, isn’t it?’ She turned to Teresa. ‘Of course, Anna mu
st have your permission to continue her education in this rather bizarre fashion.’
Teresa half-smiled, biting her lip. ‘Yes – of course. I am trying to think what my husband would say. I’m sure he wouldn’t want her to miss her studies, but –’ She took a deep breath. ‘It sounds very dangerous. It is a great responsibility for me to agree to it, you understand. If anything should happen …’
‘Teresa!’ said Anna. ‘Please! Tata asked about school, didn’t he? That was the one thing he asked about. I know he’d want us to go.’ What would she do if Teresa said no? Sit cooped up up here peeling potatoes? Go to some horrible trade school and train to be a skivvy? ‘Nothing will happen, nothing will happen! I’ll be so careful, I promise.’
‘But it could happen,’ Pani Jawicz said slowly. ‘You must realize that, Anna. I don’t want to frighten you, but I must be clear: if we are discovered, we will be arrested, there is no question. However, I’m sure, as you say, that you will be extremely careful, and if everyone is sensible then there is no reason why you should not study for your exams, and eventually sit them, so that when the war ends you will be able to go on to university.’
‘Medical school.’
‘Medical school. So –’ She turned to Teresa again.
Teresa gave a long sigh. ‘Very well. But if there is any sign that you are in real danger, you stop immediately, Anna, you understand?’
‘Yes, yes. Thank you. Oh, thank goodness! When do we start?’
Pani Jawicz smiled. ‘Next Monday. You will go to Pani Sokołowa’s apartment in Białołęka Street – you know where that is, of course.’
‘Yes.’ It was one of the longest streets in Praga.
‘Good. Number fifty-nine. Take an exercise book if you can, or paper at least – we are very short, as you can imagine. If you see any of your classmates on the way, ignore them. Each of you will arrive at a different time – you will be there by nine-fifteen, please. Pani Sokołowa will give you all something for lunch, and you will leave by two. You have taken all that in?’
‘Number fifty-nine Białołęka Street,’ said Anna. ‘Thank you.’
‘Good, good. So – now there is only Jerzy to organize!’ She smiled at him encouragingly. ‘I believe Pan Korczak will be coming to see you tomorrow, to tell you of the arrangements for the liceum.’
Jerzy was picking at a piece of loose thread in the tablecloth; he did not look up. ‘I’m not going back to school.’
‘Oh? And why is that? Surely you are not afraid?’
‘No!’
‘I see.’ Pani Jawicz rose heavily, exchanging glances with Teresa. ‘Well – I shall leave you to discuss it in private. Or with Pan Korczak tomorrow.’ She moved towards the door.
‘Jerzy!’ Anna hissed. ‘Get up! Don’t be so rude!’
He pushed back his chair and went to hold the door open, but he didn’t speak.
‘Thank you.’ Pani Jawicz went out with Teresa, and down the corridor to the front door. Anna and Jerzy could hear them talking there in low voices.
‘Jerzy?’
‘What?’
‘Come and sit down. What’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing!’ He came over and kicked the chair leg against the table.
‘What do you mean, nothing? Look at you!’
The front door closed, and Teresa came hurrying back.
‘Jerzy …’ She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘What is it, dear? What’s troubling you?’
He shrugged, exaggeratedly, so that her hand on his shoulder became awkward, and she took it away, sighing.
‘I should have thought you would have jumped at the chance to go on studying. As Anna says, so long as you are not in real danger it is certainly what your father would want.’
‘But he doesn’t know what it’s really like now, does he?’ Jerzy snapped. ‘He doesn’t know how we’re scrimping, and hungry, hungry all the bloody time? How are we supposed to live, if none of us is working?’
‘Well, of course I shall have to find some kind of work …’
‘Doing what? Why should you work for us? I’m – I’m the man of the house now, aren’t I? I should be working, not creeping off to school!’
‘You’re still a boy,’ said Teresa. ‘You’re only fifteen, Jerzy! And what do you think you’re going to do?’
‘You’re not going to work for the Germans, are you?’ Anna demanded.
‘Of course I’m bloody not!’ Jerzy yelled. ‘How can you even ask?’
‘Well what are you going to do, then?’
They were all on their feet and shouting now, all on the verge of tears.
‘I don’t know yet!’ Jerzy was banging his chair back and forth against the table. ‘I was talking to Andrzej yesterday, in the bread queue. He feels the same, and he seems to have a few ideas. I don’t care if I have to be a plumber, or sell coal, or mend windows, but I’m not going to sit around hungry any longer. I’m going out to see Andrzej now, all right?’ And he stormed out of the kitchen, slamming the door.
Anna and Teresa avoided each other’s eyes, and then they looked at each other, and sat down.
‘Dear God …’ said Teresa. She put her head in her hands. ‘If only Tomasz –’
‘Don’t,’ said Anna. ‘Don’t.’
They sat in silence. Eventually Teresa looked up and said carefully: ‘Andrzej … the one with fair hair, yes? They’re in the same class at the liceum?’
‘Yes. Jerzy’s always looked up to him.’
‘And is he sensible? He won’t lead Jerzy into trouble, will he?’
Anna shrugged. What was trouble, now? ‘I don’t think so. I like him.’
‘Do you?’ Teresa smiled weakly. ‘Poor Anna. Poor Jerzy.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Well – I have an idea, too. Will you come and look through my jewellery box with me? I should like you to help me choose something to barter.’
‘For food?’ Anna frowned at her. ‘Are people bartering now?’
‘Everyone talks about it in the queues. What else can we do? Come and help me choose something you think your father wouldn’t mind too much about, I think perhaps my amber might still be worth something. And if it isn’t – well, we shall have to part with the best dinner service, shan’t we? Or – or anything, I suppose.’
She got up, and Anna followed her out of the kitchen and into the freezing bedroom, where her father no longer slept.
At dawn, he stood waiting in the deserted railway yard. The cold was intense; as he fumbled to undo the buttons on his jacket to get out the shovel his fingers hurt so much that he almost cried. Carefully he propped it up against the wall, then, unable to stand still, walked beyond it, out to the platform. Snow-covered broken tracks stretched in the half-light into nowhere; they were empty except for a couple of abandoned coaches, where a door hung open and he could see the seats inside flung on to the floor. Above, the signal box had a gaping hole in its roof and side, and the wooden stairs were wrenched at an angle away from the doorway. He peered up and saw the skeletal iron levers snapped and twisted. They might come in useful for something, but he wasn’t going to go up there now, alone. Where the hell was Andrzej?
He walked to the end of the platform, watching the last stars fade and the sky grow paler behind the scrubby trees on the embankment; then he paced back again, and heard a rattling in the yard. Quickly he rounded the wall and saw Andrzej with the wooden trolley, standing by a small white heap in the corner.
‘You’re late,’ he whispered.
‘I know. Sorry. Look, it’s here.’ He nudged the heap with his foot and as Jerzy went over he saw wet, gleaming pieces of coal shift silently on to the snow.
‘There’s quite a bit.’
‘Yes,’ said Andrzej. ‘I told you. Where’s the shovel?’
He picked it up and swore, dropping it again. ‘It feels like ice.’
‘Why didn’t you wear gloves?’
‘I couldn’t find them.’
‘Idiot. You keep watch, then.’
&nbs
p; Andrzej bent down, picked up the shovel and began to lift the coal on to the low trolley. It had taken them the whole of last weekend to make it, borrowing wheels from a neighbour’s old pram, and wood, nails and a hinge from his uncle. From the far corner of the yard, Jerzy watched him, keeping half an eye open for any movement on the dim, unlit road. There was no one.
The trolley was piled high, and there was still a good three or four loads left in the coal heap, by the look of it. He walked across to Andrzej and said: ‘Shall we come back tomorrow?’
Andrzej nodded, passing him the shovel. ‘We’ll have to. There you are – I’ve warmed it up a bit.’ He grinned. ‘Come on.’
Jerzy tucked the shovel back inside his jacket, and Andrzej picked up the handle of the trolley and began to drag it across the snow.
‘What about the tracks?’ Jerzy said suddenly. ‘And our footprints?’
‘Oh, shit.’ Andrzej stopped. ‘Go on, go back.’
He jumped on and scraped with his foot all the thin lines left by the wheel, and the prints of their heavy boots. Andrzej had reached the road; the trolley, piled high, began to sway awkwardly – they had made the handle too short, he could see, now – and a few pieces of coal fell out. He ran to pick them up, and they turned and walked as quickly as they dared, dragging the load past the dark sheds and houses until, as the sky ebbed into morning, they were in reach of Andrzej’s street.
They hid the trolley in the courtyard outhouse, where they had built it, then climbed the stairs to his apartment, shaking with cold and relief.
‘Must be worth an absolute fortune,’ Andrzej said, as he unlocked the door. ‘All we need now are the bags.’
Białołęka Street was very long, and many of the houses were eighteenth-century, built of wood. On Monday morning, as Anna walked slowly along, an early spring sun was melting some of the hard-packed snow along the pavement to crystals, and two or three people were out with shovels, scraping it into the gutter. A woman nodded to her, but did not smile, and in any case Anna was feeling too uneasy and apprehensive to dare to ask how far along number 59 might be. She walked on, looking every now and then at the doors and gateways fringed with snow, until two blocks ahead she saw a thin dark-haired girl in a navy coat: Natalia! Anna stopped. Natalia paused outside a low, modern house, looked quickly round, then went to the front door and rang the bell. In moments, she disappeared inside.