Spring Will Be Ours

by Sue Gee

  With the photographs here, of family and places he knew, were others: the family he had never known, the country he had never visited. His other Dziadek, Mama’s father, who had been murdered by the Russians at Katyń his uncle, his namesake, who had been shot down in a Warsaw street by the Germans. They were sitting together under a silver birch tree by a river, laughing at Mama, who was taking the picture. The photograph was small and cracked and faded, like the one of Mama and Uncle Jerzy taken by their father on the same holiday, just before the war, smiling at the camera from a boat on a glinting river. Mama had her hair in plaits, and wore shorts; Jerzy, in cotton shirt, had his arm round her. In the studio picture of him on Mama’s chest of drawers he looked very intense, dark and clever; here he was carefree and ordinary, the kind of person Jerzy himself would like to be. But his uncle had been a hero, had been killed running under gunfire to try to save his friend’s life.

  Also in the frame was a picture of Tata, wearing his white and red AK armband, standing smoking behind a heap of sandbags in the early days of the Warsaw Uprising. He looked young and tough; he had been tough, noble, even, carrying and dragging his best friend for hours through a sewer, when he himself was wounded. No wonder he hates me, Jerzy thought: I can hardly run down the road. He went over to the window, looked out on to warehouses and trees across the track. Beneath the window a tube train rattled past, and he saw in his mind’s eye the Black Five, puffing faster and faster along the gleaming track through the hills, the steam rising towards the fresh blue sky,

  Behind him, his father coughed. Jerzy jumped, and turned round.

  ‘Tata?’

  ‘Are you feeling better?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  They stood awkwardly, as the sound of the train faded. Jerzy, conscious of sweat-stained shirt and jeans grimy from the train, shifted in his socks on the lino, and almost fell over his feet, knocking the narrow bed frame.

  ‘Your mother thinks I am too hard on you,’ said Jan, watching him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Jerzy mumbled.

  ‘What do you mean, it’s all right? I am too hard on you, or not?’

  ‘No. I mean … it doesn’t matter.’ He couldn’t think straight, wanting only for his father to go, and leave him alone.

  ‘Perhaps when you’ve eaten – and had your bath, of course – we could have a game of chess.’

  He’d have to sit opposite him, perhaps for an hour, trying to concentrate, nervous of making a mistake.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good. Well … I’ll leave you to have your meal in peace.’

  They could hear Anna coming along the corridor with a tray, the clink of knife and fork. She came in smiling at a space somewhere between them, as Jan brushed past and went out. Jerzy settled himself on the pillows again and she put the tray on his lap.

  ‘There … all right?’

  ‘Fine. Thanks.’ He took a mouthful, broke off a piece of bread and dipped it in the gravy. ‘Delicious. God, I was hungry. Mama – I’m sorry, I couldn’t bring you a present this time.’

  ‘Darling, it doesn’t matter.’ She sat down on the bed. ‘Did Tata talk to you?’

  ‘Sort of. He wants me to have this chess game …’

  ‘But you’re too tired now? I’ll tell him.’

  ‘No. Don’t. It’ll only make it worse. I’ll do it.’

  She shook her head. ‘I thought it would be something to share. Not an endurance test.’

  Jerzy went on eating. From the other end of the flat they could hear the television murmur, and Jan’s cough. ‘Don’t Mama,’ he said. ‘Don’t try to throw us together, it won’t work.’

  ‘Such a sad thing …’

  ‘You sound like Babcia.’ He finished his plate, put down the knife and fork. ‘I’m going to have a bath now, all right? Then I’ll tell him.’

  Anna picked up the tray. ‘I’ll run it for you as I go past.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He looked at his watch. Well after nine – Ewa might be back by ten? He heard the water running, yawned and got up, taking his spongebag from the rucksack, a clean pair of pyjamas from the drawer. In the bathroom, almost all the natural light had gone; he did not turn on the switch but stood looking in the mirror, clouding with steam, seeing his features blur and disappear. Then he undressed quickly, and lay in the bath, already almost asleep. He could just hear Mama and Tata talking, their voices no longer raised. Like an ordinary family, he thought sleepily. After a while, he got out and got dry, and into his pyjamas, and then he crept out and back to his room, slipping guiltily into bed. By the time he woke up tomorrow, Tata would have gone to work: they might not have to see each other all week.

  It was almost dark. A train went past, the light from the windows flickering along the ceiling. Then it was very quiet.

  He woke with the sound of running water and blinked, wondering for a moment where he was, half-expecting to see rows of bunks around him and sense beyond them the silence of the countryside at night. Then he recognised the bluish fluorescence of the lights from the railway line, and turned over, hearing Ewa, in bare feet, going quietly down the corridor, back to bed.

  ‘Ewa?’ He propped himself up on his side. ‘Ewa!’

  ‘Sssh!’ She came into the room, looking for a moment quite ghostly in the bluish light, wearing her long cotton nightdress, her hair tumbled over her shoulders.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she whispered. ‘Mama said you’d had an attack.’

  ‘I’m fine now. Come and talk to me.’

  ‘It’s the middle of the night.’ She came over, and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘How was your weekend?’

  ‘It was a beautiful place,’ he said, yawning. ‘But … something happened.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘It would. Go on, what was it?’ She moved on to the bed so that she could hunch up her knees with her arms round them, leaning against the wall, and the pictures of the trains, and gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘You look awful, Jerzy. Why can’t you be normal?’

  They both giggled. Then he said slowly: ‘There was a man. He was sort of … after me. I think.’ Already it seemed as if the whole thing might have happened to someone else, or been imagined. He told her, remembering the quiet, sunny airiness of the kitchen, the bleating sheep in the field beyond the window, and the sudden sense of menace in the man’s approach.

  Ewa listened. ‘He didn’t touch you, or anything.’

  ‘No. I think he would have.’

  ‘Saved by the Germans. Tata would like that.’

  ‘Yes.’ They giggled again, helplessly.

  ‘Sssh!’

  ‘Oh, Ewa, I’m so glad you’re back.’ He thought of the train journey home, his thoughts eating away at him, gnawed at by doubt: it wasn’t just that the man might have … touched him, it was the fact that he and the man had something horrible in common, some sort of twisted thing about God, where faith had become obsession. Suddenly none of that seemed to matter now – he reached across to Ewa and hugged her. ‘What about you? Where were you tonight?’

  ‘Working. Your feet are poking me – move up.’

  He moved, rustling the sheets. ‘You never work on a Sunday.’

  ‘Well, I did this Sunday.’ There was a pause. ‘If I tell you what I did, you won’t tell them?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I’ve got a boyfriend.’ She buried her head in her knees.

  ‘Oh.’ He felt a sudden, sharp pang of disappointment. Ewa with a boyfriend. ‘Oh.’

  She looked up at him and he noticed suddenly that her eyes were very swollen. ‘He’s called Leo,’ she said dreamily. ‘Isn’t that a beautiful name?’

  ‘No, I think it’s awful. Like a pop singer, or something.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that, you little swot? Anyway, he works in music, that’s his job, he works in a recording studio.’

  ‘Does he?’ He tried to imagine Ewa with someone like that, and couldn’t.

  ‘He’s really lovely,’ she said, in the same dreamy vo
ice. ‘I never thought I’d ever meet anyone like him.’

  ‘Why’ve you been crying, then?’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Yes you have.’

  ‘Oh, well, perhaps I cried a bit.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Jerzy, I just did, that’s all.’

  He shook his head, not knowing what to make of it. ‘When are you seeing him again?’

  ‘Oh, soon, I expect. He lives quite near the pub.’

  ‘Is that where you met him?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was another long pause, and then she said hesitatingly: ‘I … something’s happened to me, too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You promise you won’t tell?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Silence.

  ‘Go on, Ewa, please, you can trust me. Something with – Leo?’

  ‘Yes.’ She moved suddenly off the bed. ‘It’s no good, I can’t. It just doesn’t feel right, not yet.’ She went across to the window, pulling back the thin curtain. A summer moon hung above the trees across the track, vast and pale. She shivered.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said slowly, ‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever love anyone the way I love you.’

  ‘No,’ said Jerzy. ‘Nor me.’

  Leo did not come into the pub when Ewa went to work the next Friday. On Saturday she recognized the friends he lived with, but she didn’t like to ask after him. The following week he didn’t come in either. After that the summer became, in her later recollection, a hot, dusty, long-drawn-out day where London shimmered under a burning sky and she walked through it, looking for Leo. She saw his face half turned away from her in café windows, saw him walking gracefully, unhurriedly, just ahead of her among the crowds of tourists milling round Dillons’, the British Museum, Oxford Street. Endlessly, she saw his silhouette appear at the open doors of the pub, and his smile, and endlessly she realized it wasn’t him, and looked blankly at the people who were there, waiting for her to serve them.

  ‘It’s no good, darling,’ said Stan one evening, seeing her jump as the door banged to with the last customer’s departure. ‘He’s found another pub.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come off it.’

  She looked down at the glass in her hand, turning it slowly, over and over again, in the blue-checked tea towel.

  ‘Want to tell Uncle Stan all about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  She smiled thinly. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Then the street door swung open again, and she looked up to see Dziadek, gravely raising his hand as he came in, taking off his hat and placing it neatly on a corner table. He sat down, and waited.

  It was summer, for God’s sake. The evenings were light. Surely they would let her go home by herself now. I’ll have to move out, she thought, quickly wiping the sink beneath the bar. I’ll put up a notice next term. Then Leo’s light, cruel words, which played in her head repeatedly, slid into it once again.

  A bit intense, aren’t you, sweetheart? Not sure I can handle this.

  And he hadn’t, he’d dropped her like a stone.

  Perhaps she was too intense for anyone to be with for long? Ewa trembled between anger and self-doubt. How could she have allowed this to happen? A one-night stand – not even a night, a few hours before she had known she must go home quickly or have to fight with Mama every time she wanted to leave the house. And now it looked as if Mama might have been right all the time: she had made herself look cheap, she had acted cheaply, and – she could hardly bring herself to go on to the next bit of the story.

  At her desk in the university library, Ewa stared blankly at pages of notes and pulled out her diary, counting days. She was often irregular, sometimes a week late, once this year it had been ten days. And if you were tense it could throw you out anyway. She closed the diary and sat with her head in her hands. Should she go to his house? And stand on the doorstep like a little girl: ‘Hello, Leo, why haven’t you been to see me? Hello, Leo, guess what’s happened …’ Never. She bit her lip, then pushed back her chair and for the third time that morning went out to the lavatory. Perhaps it was all right.

  It wasn’t. She stood in the empty washroom, smelling institutional soap and floor cleaner, and her hands felt cold and clammy. Another week, she thought bleakly. I’ll give it another week before I tell Mama. She pictured her face, and hurried back to her desk.

  That night, as they were doing the till, she told Stan she wasn’t coming to work there any more.

  ‘What?’ He looked up from the pile of notes beside the open drawer, and put his hand on his heart. ‘How can you do this to me? You’re my best girl ever.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But term starts again in a few weeks, and I want to get down to my work. You’ll easily find someone else.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, easily. Don’t give me any notice, will you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

  Stan wrote down a total on a pad, and came over to her. ‘Taken it hard, haven’t you, darling? I should’ve warned you off properly, kept you away from him.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I can take care of myself.’

  ‘Oh, I can see that.’ He put his arm round her and she stood stiffly, not looking at him. ‘Eve? You are okay, aren’t you? I mean …’

  ‘I am okay,’ she said, and carefully moved away. She bent down to the shelf under the bar where she kept her bag, and straightened up. If there were anyone she could tell, it would probably be Stan. But not yet.

  ‘If you need me,’ he said, ‘you know where I am.’

  ‘Yes. Thanks. Thanks for everything.’

  He was beside the pile of notes again, counting out her money for the week. ‘I ought to deduct half of it for giving me no notice,’ he said, ‘but I’m giving you an extra fiver as a bonus. Here we are.’

  ‘Oh, Stan, thank you.’ She leaned forward and brushed his cheek with her lips. ‘Goodbye.’

  He touched his cheek. ‘Wish I’d made it a tenner now. Bye, darling. All the best.’ He lifted the bar top for her just as the door swung open and Jan came in, nodding to them both.

  ‘I’m ready, Tata,’ Ewa said quickly. ‘Let’s go.’ She hurried past him to the door, without looking back.

  ‘You won’t need to come and pick me up any more,’ she said as they walked down the street.

  ‘Oh? May I ask why?’

  ‘Too much work. I want to concentrate on my studies.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  They walked on in silence. As they approached the main road he said awkwardly: ‘That boy … the one you liked … did you ever see him again?’

  ‘No,’ said Ewa. ‘Never.’

  The second week of August slid into the third. Unable to focus on essay or translation, Ewa gave up going to the library and took to walking over the common with Jerzy and Burek. Lovers lay kissing beneath the trees, transistor radios blared, mothers took their children to watch the toy boats sail across the pond. Babies with bare feet kicked under canopies in their prams, or fretted in pushchairs. There seemed to be babies everywhere.

  ‘What happened to Leo?’ asked Jerzy.

  She shook her head, not answering. Beside them, Burek panted. They stood by the pond, watching the pretty white sails of the boats; some of them had motors, and boys stood on the edge with remote control panels and aerials. The buzzing cut through the hot afternoon air like a power saw.

  ‘Not like when we were little,’ said Jerzy.

  ‘No,’ said Ewa. ‘Everything’s different now.’

  Out on the road, from cars with their windows wide open or sun roofs back, rock music pulsed through the traffic. They walked on, into the shade of the chestnut trees, and then to the children’s playground, where an ice cream van stood waiting.

  ‘Want one?’ Jerzy asked.

  Ewa nodded. ‘I’ll pay.’

  ‘I’ll get them. You sit down for a bit.’

  She sat on a bench and watched him walk ov
er to the queue, perhaps less stiff and ungainly than she’d thought, or he was changing. He’d grown taller, and with their walks and his trips away had got brown and fitter-looking. He hadn’t had an asthma attack for at least a couple of weeks. He moved up in the queue and she turned to watch the children on the swings and the slide, the toddlers digging absorbedly in the sandpit. If I told him, she thought, would he know how to help me? Oh God, oh God, what am I going to do?

  ‘Here – a choc ice, is that all right?’

  He sat down beside her, and she took it from him. ‘Fine. Thank you.’ Burek flopped at their feet, and they sat licking the ices, brushing off flies.

  ‘Ewa … tell me what’s wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  She closed her eyes. ‘I’ll tell you soon. Just not quite yet.’

  After a while, they got up and began to walk home. ‘We’ll get supper for Mama, shall we?’ said Jerzy, as they approached the shops.

  ‘All right – just some salad or something. I can’t even think about food.’ That was a sign, wasn’t it? ‘Have you got enough money?’

  ‘Yes, she gave me some this morning.’

  They stopped at the greengrocers they often used, open on to the street, cool and dark inside. As they went in, Ewa felt suddenly very weak; she stood beside Jerzy, distantly hearing him buy cucumber, watercress, lettuce. Her head swam, and then she felt a warm, unmistakable trickle between her legs, and she reached out to hold on to an orange box, unbelieving.

  ‘Ewa? You okay?’

  ‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ She drew a deep breath – it was unmistakable, wasn’t it? Outside the shop, she began to walk quickly towards the turning to their own street, feeling the familiar dull ache in her stomach, the first twinges of cramp.

  ‘Slow down a bit,’ said Jerzy. ‘Poor old Burek can’t take the pace.’

  ‘I’m going ahead, all right? I need to go to the loo, I’ll leave the door …’

  She broke into a run, along the burning pavement to their front door, inside and up the stairs. At the flat door she paused, hearing the television: Mama was home early. She quickly unlocked the door, leaving it on the latch, and went straight away to the bathroom, sensing somehow that there was something odd about the television being on so early, and Mama not calling out at once, but she had to be sure, before she went in to her.