Let Me Tell You a Story

  ‘Here we are,’ Frederika said cheerfully.

  We were close to the aeroplane and it was enormous. A gigantic metal bird with a gaping black hole in its side. There were steps leading up, which I realised must be the way in, and several men were standing around. They all looked important in their uniforms. One of them was very tall wearing a Russian uniform with a fur flap cap. This was the pilot. The other men were too busy to notice us, peering at the wheels and the underside of that great bird.

  I looked back the way I’d come, hoping for a final glimpse of my aunt and uncle, but all I saw was a seemingly endless stream of children coming towards us. I searched for Tomasz’s pale face in the crowd, but couldn’t find it.

  ‘You need to board,’ said the woman, who had reappeared.

  The pilot smiled at me as I began to climb the steps, higher and higher. I felt like the Pied Piper, leading a long line of children.

  ‘Please take this.’ Someone handed me a brown paper bag as I entered the aircraft.

  ‘What’s this for?’ I asked Frederika. ‘It’s empty.’

  ‘It’s in case you feel sick,’ Frederika said.

  As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw rows of hard wooden benches running down each side of the cabin beneath little round windows. I took a seat next to Frederika and watched the other children do the same. As more and more children filed in, the narrow seats filled up until we were all squashed in together. The door was closed and locked. For a moment we all sat there staring at each other, not knowing where to look or what to say and then there was the most almighty roar. The engines started, and then there followed an even greater roar as I felt the plane suddenly move, slowly at first and then gradually faster and faster, gathering speed.

  I was terrified. We were all going to die!

  It wasn’t possible for such a heavy beast to stay up in the sky. I knew that because every time I threw something up in the air it always came down, very quickly. Gravity – that’s what my teachers had called it. Then my heart went into my mouth and the front of the aeroplane rose up and we were flying. Up and up, higher and higher into the sky. I closed my eyes and prayed. Thank goodness I was now a Catholic. I had been saved just in time. I waited for the horrible crash to tell us it was all over. There was a terrible bumping and the aeroplane began to shake so violently that I thought it was going to shatter into a million pieces like the mirror in The Snow Queen. But it didn’t. Instead, the aeroplane levelled and the bumping and shaking went away leaving only the roar of the engines.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Frederika shouted.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Are we back on the ground?’

  ‘No, we are high up in the sky. Look.’

  I twisted round in my seat and looked through the window. All I could see was fluffy white clouds below us and the deep blue sky above. All of a sudden I felt violently sick. I hastily opened my paper bag and vomited. As I came up for air, I noticed, thankfully, that I wasn’t the only person with my head over their paper bag.

  After a couple of hours of sitting on the wooden benches, my bottom had become numb. I wanted to stretch my legs. I wanted Frederika to tell me a story but the noise of the engines was too loud and we were too tightly packed in to allow me to move. Then the front of the aeroplane began to go down and we passed smoothly through the clouds as they parted for us on either side. As I saw the ground racing towards me I felt an almighty jolt. Children screamed as they lurched into the person sitting next to them. The plane shook and from somewhere beneath us came squeals and a rush of air. Frederika gripped my hand and smiled reassuringly at me.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she shouted. ‘Don’t worry. We’re quite safe.’

  When we had come to a standstill and the door had been opened again, I felt the cool air on my face and began to feel a bit better. I never wanted to set foot on an aeroplane again. I followed Frederika out into the fresh air. As I waited to go down the steps onto the tarmac I watched the pile of luggage grow higher and higher as it magically spilled out of the back of the aeroplane and onto the ground. I pulled on Frederika’s arm.

  ‘We’ll never find our bags,’ I wailed. ‘My lovely little case. I’ll never find it!’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Frederika replied. ‘They will take it to the docks for us and we will collect it when we board the boat.’

  So we left our bags and boxes and were taken by lorry from the aerodrome to the harbour and by the time we reached the docks I still hadn’t recovered from the shock of landing. We were led into a crowded hall where we stayed for several hours. When I felt less sick, I ate some of the food that Frederika had managed to save me; a couple of sandwiches given to us by the lady.

  The hall was large and grey with dirty windows. On the wall facing me was a long, narrow board painted white. As I gazed at it, I heard music and to my astonishment a black-and-white image appeared on the board. It was a picture of men in evening suits and white shirts and black ties playing musical instruments. And then the picture started to move. It was as if I was looking through the wall into a room beyond, except that everything was in black-and-white and shades of grey. The men were smiling as their long fingers plucked at strings, their hands moved bows up and down; others with round cheeks blew into trumpets. I couldn’t understand it but stood transported by the magic, feasting on the moving images, dancing in my imagination to the wonderful tunes.

  It was time to board the ship. We were led outside and there I saw it for the first time, a massive ship sitting in the water with the thickest ropes I had ever seen to stop it from floating away. I thought it must be bigger than the home of the biggest giant on earth. There were no sails and it wasn’t made of wood. I had been so wrong. I was glad that my friends weren’t here and that we weren’t going to be weighed and divided into groups before getting on.

  As the hundreds of us children collected our cases from the huge pile on the dock, we formed a line and as darkness fell we went on board. I was so glad that my case had my name painted on the outside as otherwise I knew I would never have found it. Frederika helped me to lug the heavy case up on deck and then she went back to get her own bags. She reappeared a minute later empty-handed but followed closely by two young sailors who had offered to help her.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Frederika said, giving them one of her winning smiles.

  Frederika led the way to our cabin along the maze of narrow corridors where we had to stand back against the wall if we met anyone coming in the opposite direction. We squeezed past boxes and cases left outside the cabin doors. Finally she produced some keys from her handbag and unlocked a door that looked just like all the doors we had passed. She stood back to let me go in first.

  ‘Oh look,’ I said, delighted.

  The room was large and in one corner was a washbasin. Set against the walls were three beds, one of which was above the second, and the third stood on its own beneath a round window through which I could glimpse the sea. I was surprised to find that the best bunk bed, the one with the view out of the porthole, already had luggage on it.

  ‘Someone’s left their luggage behind!’

  ‘We have to share our cabin,’ Frederika said.

  ‘Who with?’ I said unhappily.

  ‘With a little girl called Anka. She is travelling alone and will be going all the way to America to live with relatives. She is eight, like you,’ explained Frederika. ‘She’s probably very lonely and you must be kind to her.’

  Frederika could see that I wasn’t happy with the idea of having to share a cabin with a stranger and said, ‘It’ll be nice for you to have someone of your own age to play with when you get tired of me.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Come on,’ said Frederika, trying to cheer me up. ‘You and I will have great fun on these bunks. We can take turns at sleeping on top.’

  When Anka appeared at last she was pale and miserable and hardly said a word. I thought that she must be very frightened, all on her own, surround
ed by so many people.

  ‘Isn’t this exciting?’ I said. ‘We are going to be living on this big ship for a week. We can have so much fun – there are so many places to hide. We can play the best hide and seek ever.’ Still she said nothing. ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’

  Anka wouldn’t reply. Frederika tried to comfort her and talk to her, but she wouldn’t say a thing. I decided that she wasn’t going to be much fun after all and so began unpacking my suitcase.

  ‘I know,’ said Frederika, looking at her watch. ‘I think we’ll all feel better if we have something to eat. Shall we go and find some food?’

  Anka nodded her head politely.

  We made our way up to the huge dining room and found it bursting with children. We were given soup and pancakes filled with cheese and mashed potato, and then Frederika announced that it was time for bed.

  I woke in the night and for a few moments I didn’t know where I was or what was happening. I was being tossed up and down and flung violently from side to side. I could hear cracking sounds, water bashing against the sides of the boat, the wind howling and through the porthole came a weak watery grey light that made the inside of the cabin look scary.

  ‘Frederika, what’s happening? Where are we? I want Aunt Zuzia.’

  There was no answer. I saw Frederika’s outline bent over the washbasin where she was being sick. From the other side of the room I could hear Anka moaning in her bed. I jumped out of my bunk and, grabbing onto the furniture for support, struggled over to Anka’s bed trying not to bump into Frederika. Close up I could see Anka’s cheeks were a bright scarlet colour and she was covered in big red spots. Her eyes were wide open and stared straight at me, but she didn’t seem to recognise or see me at all. Frightened, I made my way back to Frederika who was sitting on the edge of her bunk looking like a ghost. The dim light made her red hair darker and the whiteness of her face even whiter with her freckles standing out like spots.

  ‘I’m sorry, Renata,’ she gasped. ‘Are you all right? I must lie down. I feel terrible.’

  She collapsed on her bed with a groan and closed her eyes.

  I moved over to Anka’s bed, but Anka seemed to be fast asleep. She was breathing heavily and her cheeks were still fiery. I didn’t want to wake her and I couldn’t bother Frederika so there seemed little else to do but go back to bed myself. I lay in my bunk enjoying the swaying and rocking and very soon fell fast asleep.

  When I woke again the light inside the cabin was brighter but the boat was still tossing and heaving and both Anka and Frederika were awake.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ I said. ‘Shall we go and get some breakfast?’

  ‘I can’t face food,’ Frederika said. ‘You go and get some if you like.’

  ‘Do you want to come, Anka?’ I asked cheerfully, but Anka turned her head and was sick over the side of her bunk. Frederika forced herself out of her bunk to see to the mess. I thought that this was a good time to go in search of food.

  In the dining room three waiters were talking, holding on to the furniture as the ship continued to heave beneath our feet. They seemed pleased to see me.

  ‘Please, take a seat,’ they said, waving to an empty dining hall that today seemed vast as no one was there but me.

  I chose a seat next to the window where I could watch the angry sea lunging towards the ship that dipped down to meet it before being thrown high into the sky, the waves crashing over the window. The lurching and rolling made me feel hungrier than ever and the waiters proceeded to wait on me hand and foot.

  ‘What an appetite that child has,’ I heard one waiter say to another as he spooned yet more food onto my plate.

  From that morning on, I enjoyed huge breakfasts, alone, every day.

  Since the dining room was deserted after breakfast I decided to explore and find some good hiding places for when Anka was feeling better. I made my way along the narrow corridors and up some stairs along more corridors until I came to a door that blocked my path. I tried the handle but the door remained shut. I tried again, pushing against it with all my might, and it swung open. I found myself outside on the deck, the wind was howling, whipping my hair against my cheeks, making my eyes smart, tugging at my clothes. Spray from the sea hit my face with its stinging force. I felt exhilarated. I ran back to our cabin to tell Frederika and Anka but they were too ill to care.

  For two days no one walked on deck except the sailors and me. No one used the public rooms and only a sprinkling of people ventured into the dining room. I soon grew tired of my own company and of waiting for Anka to get better, so I decided to talk to the sailors.

  ‘Where are you from?’ I shouted to one I met on deck. He too was enjoying being thrashed by the storm.

  ‘Russia,’ he shouted back.

  I smiled up at him thinking of the friendly Russian soldiers and their bars of chocolate in Przemyśl.

  ‘I am surprised you aren’t sick like everyone else,’ he commented.

  ‘I don’t feel sick. I love the ship going up and down like this,’ I said. ‘But it is a bit lonely with no one to talk to or play with.’

  The sailor smiled down at me and put his hand into his pocket and produced a small package. I recognised it instantly.

  ‘Chocolate!’

  From then on I always smiled sweetly at the sailors and asked them questions. It turned out that they all carried packets of chocolate. As I tore off the colourful wrappers and enjoyed their contents, they would stroke my fair hair and talk to me about their children.

  After three long days the storm died and gradually the ship came to life with passengers again. Frederika was much better and she gave me all her attention. We were never apart. Poor Anka was now completely covered in spots.

  The ship’s doctor came to see her.

  ‘This is serious,’ he said, peering at the spots then into her mouth. ‘It’s chicken pox, it’s contagious. She will have to come with me to the clinic where we can keep an eye on her.’

  So poor little Anka, too ill to care, was moved out of our cabin and I never saw her again.

  Not long after this, the ship stopped in a Scandinavian port and we were told this was the first and only time in the week-long journey that the boat would dock.

  ‘Shall we go ashore and take a look around?’ Frederika asked me. ‘It will be good to be on dry land again.’

  I could tell she was excited so we made our way up the hill from the docks towards the inviting lights of the town. We had a whole evening to explore the streets and shops lit up by hundreds of warm yellow lights that drew us, like moths, to gaze in the windows. The clothes were so lovely – in more colours and patterns than I had ever seen before.

  ‘This is wonderful,’ Frederika sighed. ‘Quite the most wonderful place on earth.’

  As I watched Frederika examine everything in detail, I saw her passion come alive. Murmurs of joy and amazement at the fineness of the cloth and the elaborate stitching went on and on. Then I spotted a pair of green shoes with very thin pointed heels, and I began to giggle.

  ‘Look, Frederika,’ I exclaimed. ‘How can anyone walk in these?’

  ‘Oh, they are gorgeous! What a pity this shop’s closed. Otherwise I would have bought them – if I had the money that is,’ she sighed.

  The journey passed quickly; I was loving every moment, so much so that I hadn’t given Aunt Zuzia or my father a single thought. But on the night before we were due to dock in England, I was terribly worried and nervous and I began asking Frederika a million questions. For some reason Frederika was also nervous; she only answered my questions briefly.

  ‘Do you think Tatuś will recognise me?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Frederika replied.

  ‘But he hasn’t seen me since I was a baby, so how will he?’

  ‘Aunt Zuzia has sent him a photograph. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Yes, but that was horrible. I couldn’t sit still while the man had his head under that hood – he looked so funny, and anyway th
e photograph didn’t look anything like me.’

  But Frederika would not answer and eventually I gave up and went in search of chocolate.

  Chapter Nineteen

  29 March 1946. London

  Through the porthole above Anka’s bunk I could see sunlight twinkling on the water. The sky was a brilliant orange. But inside the cabin, we were arguing. Frederika insisted I wear several layers of woollen clothes.

  ‘But it’s so hot,’ I complained. ‘And I should know. I’ve been out for a walk on deck. The sun’s out and one of the sailors told me it’s going to be really hot. There’s a heat wave.’

  ‘It can’t possibly be really hot. It’s only March,’ Frederika said crossly, trying to stuff my arm into yet another cardigan sleeve. ‘I don’t want you arriving to meet your father with pneumonia or worse. Just do as you’re told and stop being such a baby.’

  ‘I’m not a baby. I’m boiling hot. Why aren’t you wearing hundreds of layers?’

  ‘Because I’m not a little girl about to meet her father after five years. Just do as you’re told,’ she said.

  I didn’t understand. I had never heard Frederika speak so angrily and I looked at her in surprise. Her hair had fallen across her face in our struggle, but I could see small red spots. Her face was red and blotchy – just like Anka’s.

  ‘Frederika,’ I said, ‘you look ill, just like Anka. Do you have chicken pox?’

  ‘I don’t feel very well,’ Frederika replied wearily, ‘but you mustn’t say a word of this to anyone in case they don’t allow me to leave the ship.’

  ‘But what will we do if the spots on your face get bigger? Will we have to go back to Poland without seeing Tatuś?’

  Now I was worried. After all this, the thought of having to turn round and go back without seeing my father was simply too much to bear. I didn’t for one moment imagine that I would be allowed to leave the ship without Frederika.