Let Me Tell You a Story

  ‘Sorry,’ the driver said, ‘but the poor old fellow can’t go any faster on these streets and we don’t want him slipping and breaking a leg now, do we?’

  We trotted on until we pulled up outside the house again. I felt so pleased with myself.

  ‘Before the war I was a chauffeur to the couple your uncle is visiting right now. I wore a long coat, long gloves, hat and goggles. They had a big black car with shining brass lamps, a hood and leather seats, and I was in charge of it. I drove them everywhere they wanted to go and kept it clean and oiled.’ His eyes shone with pride as he spoke.

  Although I had seen soldiers’ tanks and lorries, I’d never seen a motor car like that. The driver told me how he used to spend hours polishing the outside of the car to make it so shiny that you could see your reflection in it and then how he had to crank up a handle at the front to get the engine going. He told me that, after he got used to the smell from the engine, riding in a motor car was very exciting.

  ‘Why don’t you drive their car now?’

  ‘There’s no petrol. They still have the car but it’s in a shed in the country. Without fuel, it’s useless. But who knows, maybe one day when things improve it will come into its own again. Besides, this old fellow and I are old friends, aren’t we?’ He bent forward and patted the horse’s rump affectionately.

  ‘I’d love to see it,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe one day you will.’

  I wanted to stay and talk to the driver for hours, but my uncle appeared.

  ‘Renata, Mr and Mrs Zimiński would like to meet you,’ he said. ‘Are you presentable?’ I showed him my hands. ‘Yes, you’ll do.’

  The driver lifted me down and gave me a wink.

  ‘They’re lovely people,’ he said. ‘It’s such a shame their little girl died.’

  I looked up at him quickly wondering if I had heard him correctly but he had already turned back to his horse.

  Mrs Zimińska was waiting in the open door of her apartment on the top floor. She was tall and pretty with wavy blonde hair and big blue eyes that looked sad even though she was smiling when we came out of the lift. She bent down and kissed me.

  ‘Lovely to meet you, darling,’ she said. ‘Come in and meet my husband. He is looking forward to seeing you. Your uncle has told us so much about you and what a good girl you are and what a hard time you have had and how brave you’ve been.’

  I was surprised that my uncle had said nice things about me. I thought he thought that I was badly behaved and a nuisance.

  Mrs Zimińska led us into a room full of lovely carved furniture. There was a man sitting in a large chair by the window. He had a rug over his knees and he didn’t get up to greet us. Instead he stretched out his arms and smiled.

  ‘Hello, Renata,’ he said. ‘We are so pleased to meet you at last. Your uncle has talked about you.’

  I walked up to him and shyly shook hands.

  ‘You are happy living with your uncle and aunt?’ Mr Zimiński asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Do you miss your mother very much?’

  ‘Only sometimes. But I’m not an orphan. I have a father who will come back when he’s stopped fighting for Poland.’ Then I remembered. ‘He isn’t fighting because he is a doctor. Doctors don’t fight, they help ill people to get better.’

  ‘What would you say if I told you that I knew your father and your mother too?’

  ‘Did you?’ I forgot to be shy. ‘What were they like? Were they young like you?’

  ‘Haven’t you got any photos?’ Mr Zimiński asked.

  ‘No, but I wish I had.’

  ‘Kalinka,’ the man turned to his wife, ‘fetch the red album from the cupboard in the study, would you?’ Mr Zimiński looked at me. ‘I’m not sitting here ordering my wife around because I’m lazy. I am stuck in this chair because my legs don’t work any more. I’m a cripple.’

  ‘Oh how awful.’

  ‘Don’t feel sorry for me. I am alive and your uncle looks after me wonderfully. He is the best doctor in the whole of Poland and we, like so many others, owe him a great deal. Has he told you about the orphan children?’

  I shook my head. I had heard Aunt Zuzia mention the orphans to Božena when I arrived but I hadn’t thought that he was able to help them.

  ‘Well, perhaps he will tell you one day,’ Mr Zimiński added, looking at Uncle Julek who was smiling but didn’t say anything. I thought that I would ask Aunt Zuzia about this when we got home. After a minute or two, Mrs Zimińska returned holding a large red book that she carefully placed on her husband’s knees. It was a photograph album full of yellowing photos carefully fixed into see-through corners that were stuck onto the thick black paper. He turned over the pages.

  ‘Here it is,’ he said, very pleased. ‘I knew we had one. Look, Renata, here’s your mother.’

  I saw the smiling face of a young lady who looked to me like a complete stranger. She had a round face and a lovely smile and a very straight nose. She had her hair swept sideways and was sitting, half turned towards the camera, with a patterned shawl draped around her shoulders. I looked closer and a strange feeling came over me. This was a picture of my mother and yet I couldn’t remember her looking like that at all.

  ‘Is this really a picture of my Mamusia?’ I asked. ‘I can’t remember her looking like that. I remember her being very thin.’

  Suddenly I felt terribly sad and tears welled up in my eyes. Why did I have to be Jewish and hated? If my parents had been Catholic, none of this would have happened. Life just wasn’t fair. At that moment I hated being Jewish more than anything in the world. It didn’t matter what I did – I would always be different.

  ‘Your mother was such a lovely person.’ Mr Zimiński tried to comfort me. ‘I knew her well and I’ll tell you a little secret.’ He lowered his voice. ‘When I was a very young man and she was a very young woman, long before she met your father and I met Kalinka, we fell in love. I had this photo taken of her. So Tosia is much younger in this photo than the mother you remember.’

  I stared at him in surprise.

  ‘But how could you have been in love with her?’

  ‘We lived in the same town. We went to the same university and knew the same people.’

  ‘But, but she was Jewish.’

  ‘Renata, come here.’ Mr Zimiński held out his arms and as I approached he leaned forward and drew me to him in a bear-like hug. ‘Listen, my darling, you are becoming a big girl and you must remember what I’m going to say to you because it’s the truth and very important. You must not grow up believing that it is wrong to be Jewish and that everyone hates Jews. Many people like me hate the Nazis for what they did to the Jews. Hitler is an evil man and if there is any justice in this world he will get his comeuppance one of these days.’

  ‘You are not alone in losing someone you loved.’ Uncle Julek’s voice came to us from where he was standing by the window. It croaked and he gave a little cough. ‘Everyone has lost someone dear to them. Remember your aunt and I lost our two sons whom we loved very much. We understand how you feel, Renata. But remember too that we are blessed because we have you and you have us.’

  Uncle Julek had surprised me for the second time that day and I knew that all the sadness I was feeling for my mother he was feeling for Fredzio and Jerzyk. I went over to my uncle, stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He grunted and turned away, but still half-turned towards the window he stretched out his hand behind him and gently patted my cheek.

  ‘Renata, I want you to come with me,’ Mrs Zimińska said. ‘There are some things we would like to give you. They belonged to Maria, our daughter, who would have been the same age as you.’

  ‘What happened to Maria?’ I asked, remembering what the driver had said.

  ‘She died when our house was bombed. She was killed when my husband was left crippled.’

  ‘Oh, how dreadful,’ I whispered. ‘My cousin Zazula was shot in the street by Nazis and so was my aunt. Za
zula was four years older than me and we used to play together all the time. I’m really sorry about Maria. Have you got a picture of her?’

  Mrs Zimińska pointed to a photograph on the mantelpiece in which a little girl with dark curly hair was smiling. She was holding a doll dressed in a dark flowery dress and a light-coloured apron. She looked very happy.

  ‘We like to remember her like that,’ her mother said. ‘Come with me to her room. There are some toys I am sure she would have been happy to pass on to you to enjoy. You can have them if you want. I know you will look after them and sometimes think of our Maria.’

  She led me down the corridor and opened a door at the far end. As the door swung open I gazed at Maria’s own fairyland. It was a beautiful pink room with a lacy bed; a bookcase full of books, a huge doll’s house and over by the window a wonderful rocking horse with flared nostrils and a long golden mane.

  I gasped with delight.

  ‘We thought you might like to have the rocking horse and some of the books to take home, and you can come here as often as you like to play with the doll’s house and read the rest of the books. Would you like that?’

  I couldn’t speak. I nodded my head up and down.

  Mrs Zimińska smiled and kissed me again.

  ‘That’s settled then. Now come and have some cake. I baked it especially for you. You do like chocolate, don’t you?’

  Chapter Sixteen

  September 1944–1945

  ‘Now that we’re told the war is nearly over, and the schools have reopened,’ Uncle Julek said one morning, ‘the sooner we enrol that child the better.’

  For once Aunt Zuzia agreed with him. ‘Children have missed out on so much education,’ she said, ‘and now everyone is trying to get their children into school. I will write to the headmistress of the Roman Catholic School and ask whether she can take you. It’s always had such a good reputation and I am sure you will do well there.’

  A few days later Aunt Zuzia came into the kitchen holding a letter. ‘Read it aloud,’ Uncle Julek and I said at the same time. He looked at me and we laughed.

  ‘Dear Mrs Zielińska,’ my aunt read. ‘It is after a great deal of thought and consideration that I have decided to grant your request for your great-niece Renata to attend the school as a full-time day pupil. This was not an easy decision given that your great-niece is not Roman Catholic but of the Protestant faith –’

  ‘But, Aunt Zuzia, I’m not a Protestant,’ I cried out. ‘What is she talking about?’

  ‘Renata,’ replied Aunt Zuzia, ‘do you think I would say I wanted my great-niece who is a Jewess to attend a Roman Catholic school? Think, my darling. And if I were to lie and say you were a Roman Catholic then they would wonder why you didn’t know all the rituals and prayers and things like that. No, Uncle Julek and I thought it best to say you were a Protestant so that at least you had a good chance of getting in and at the same time it would be an excuse for not knowing anything about Roman Catholicism. Let’s see what else the headmistress says.

  ‘After consultation with the Board members we have decided that we can offer Renata a place on the condition that she attends, twice weekly, religious instruction in addition to daily morning prayer and, in time, seriously considers adopting the Catholic faith. I look forward to meeting you both on the first day of the new term. Yours sincerely, Mrs Malinowska, Headmistress.

  ‘That is wonderful news,’ exclaimed Aunt Zuzia. ‘Julek, aren’t you pleased?’

  Uncle Julek was looking worried.

  ‘You must never, ever, tell anyone that you come from a Jewish background,’ he said after reading the letter for himself. ‘We can’t take the risk. There is still so much ill-feeling, and I don’t trust anyone.’

  ‘And you mustn’t say that your mother and grandmother were taken away by the Nazis,’ Aunt Zuzia added. ‘It’s our secret and no one else must know.’

  ‘Can I tell them that I’m not an orphan and that Tatuś is abroad with the Polish Army?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, you can tell them that,’ Uncle Julek said, ‘but if anyone asks about your mother, you must say that she died. No more than that. Do not draw attention to yourself. Do you understand?’

  I understood and I didn’t mind one bit. My dearest wish had been granted. I was at last going to go to school. I would learn to read more new words and write. I was so excited. Then I thought of Zazula and how much she had loved going to school and suddenly I felt very sad that she was no longer here and that we weren’t going to be going to school together.

  My first day at school arrived. I found myself outside a square grey building with three rows of windows and a large front door. Beside the front door was a sign painted in black on a white board: Szkola prywatna dla Dziewczynek.

  ‘Private School for Girls’ I read aloud. I knew at once that I would love this school. A girl, a few years older than me with her hair scraped back from her face and wearing a white apron over her dress, smiled at us as we stood in the entrance hall. Aunt Zuzia asked her where the Headmistress’s office was and she showed us the way.

  Mrs Malinowska was sitting behind a large desk reading through some papers. Her dark hair was swept up into a coil fastened with a huge comb. Without smiling, she offered three fingers in greeting to my aunt and nodded at me.

  ‘Your aunt has informed me that you can read, Renata,’ she said. ‘That is good. Can you tell me what you have read this week?’

  ‘I’ve read three books this week,’ I replied proudly.

  ‘Really? What were the titles?’

  ‘David Copperfield, for the third time. The Water-Babies and …’

  ‘But surely you haven’t read all these in a week?’ Mrs Malinowska looked surprised. ‘They are difficult books and very grown-up for you.’

  ‘No. Really, I loved them. I’ve also read –’

  ‘In future,’ Mrs Malinowska interrupted, ‘you will read what your teacher recommends. We can’t have you reading unsuitable books.’

  ‘My husband,’ Aunt Zuzia interrupted, ‘feels that she will only understand what she is ready for and the rest won’t do her any harm.’

  Mrs Malinowska stared at Aunt Zuzia.

  ‘Mrs Zielińska, we maintain a very high standard here and monitor our girls most carefully. We are already regaining the high reputation we had built up before this unfortunate war. You can rest assured that Renata will be in very experienced hands. I have put her in the second class where she will be fortunate enough to be under the tutelage of Mrs Dabrowska, a highly competent and experienced teacher.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Aunt Zuzia murmured. ‘You are very kind. We really are most grateful.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Mrs Malinowska nodded her head as she pressed a shiny bell button set in the wall behind her desk.

  ‘Now, Renata,’ she said, turning back to us, ‘one of your classmates will be along in a moment to take you to meet your new class and your teacher. I am sure you will settle in very quickly. But I see you haven’t got an apron. All our pupils wear aprons, and your aunt will get you one for tomorrow, but in the meantime, and for one day only, you can borrow this one.’

  She produced a folded white apron out of a drawer of her desk and helped me into it.

  ‘There now,’ she said, ‘you will look the same as the others and feel more comfortable.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I breathed. I felt so excited in my clean white apron and couldn’t wait to start learning.

  There was a gentle tap on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Mrs Malinowska called.

  A girl about the same age as me with the most beautiful shiny brown hair drawn back into a thick plait came in and smiled at me. She was dainty and the frilly apron she wore made her look like a girl that I’d seen in a picture book. I think I’m going to like her, I thought. I hope she will want to be my friend.

  ‘This is Kasia,’ Mrs Malinowska said. ‘Kasia, this is Renata. I have asked Kasia to look after you because apparently you live very near each other, o
n the same street in fact, and I thought you might like to walk to school and back together.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Aunt Zuzia said, a bit shocked. ‘There’s no need, really, I will bring and collect Renata.’

  ‘We encourage our girls to be independent,’ Mrs Malinowska responded firmly. ‘We are living in a very different world where it is important to be self-sufficient. I am sure that Kasia will be only too pleased to bring Renata home this afternoon.’

  Kasia nodded.

  Mrs Malinowska then turned to us. ‘Now off you go to class, girls.’

  Without remembering to say goodbye to Aunt Zuzia, I followed my new friend out into the corridor.

  ‘I live at Number 16, Kolejowa Street. We can play together if you like. Where do you live?’ Kasia asked, as we made our way quickly towards our classroom.

  ‘Number 2. You can come and play with my dolls,’ I said. ‘I’m sure my aunt won’t mind.’

  ‘Nor will my mother. Why do you live with your aunt? Where is your mother?’

  ‘She’s dead, I think.’

  ‘What a funny thing to say. Don’t you know?’

  ‘Yes I do know, but my father will be back one of these days.’

  We had now reached the door of our classroom. Kasia led the way and twenty pairs of eyes turned and stared at me. I suddenly felt very shy.

  ‘Hello, Renata. Welcome to Class 2. We are very pleased that you have joined us,’ the teacher said, and smiled. ‘I am Mrs Dabrowska and, girls, this is Renata who will be in our class as from today. I know you will make her very welcome.’

  I smiled shyly and one or two of the girls smiled, but the rest just stared. I was much blonder than anybody else in the room and my hair, having grown quite long since I had left the orphanage, was tightly plaited like everyone else’s, but I could feel the unruly curls already beginning to escape around my face. I was glad that I was wearing the borrowed apron because it helped to make me look like all the others.