Spring Will Be Ours (37 page)

‘Or perhaps it upsets him,' said Ewa, moving. ‘I told you I was too heavy, Babcia.'

‘It's all right, stay where you are.'

‘And what about you?' Ewa asked her. ‘Mama said something about you taking off your armband …'

Babcia shrugged. ‘I had to,' she said. ‘I was separated from Jan – from your father – on the day the Uprising began. I was delayed, I remember I had to deliver a parcel of shirts to a unit several streets away, and there was a scare, we thought the house was being watched, that the Germans somehow had wind of it all … Anyway, it was hours before we were given the all-clear, and of course by the time I got home, Jan had gone. I didn't know if I would ever see him or Dziadek again. And the friends with whom I had joined the AK – we were a very small unit, and quickly … depeleted. I was afraid for my life, and all I wanted was to see my family again. So – I became a civilian, and I was sent to a labour camp.'

Ewa patted her cheek. ‘Was it horrible?'

‘It wasn't pleasant. We needn't talk about it now – I survived, which was my intention. And as Dziadek says, we all met up again in Italy, thank God.'

‘And that's where Mama and Tata met, isn't it?' Ewa tried once again to imagine it.

‘Yes, that's right. They were stationed in the same town, on the Adriatic coast. A very lovely place.'

Anna was coming back with a tray; she put it down on the table.

‘Now – who would like buttered toast?'

‘Me!' said Jerzy.

‘Me!' Ewa scrambled off Babcia's lap.

‘Careful,
kochana
…' Babcia rubbed her knees.

‘Sorry.'

Anna handed her a pile of plates. ‘Pass them round, please, Jerzy – you can hand round the toast.'

‘Babcia … Dziadek …'

Anna lifted the teapot, and began to pour.

‘And
was
it love at first sight?' Ewa asked her again. ‘When you and Tata met?'

‘I beg your pardon?' Anna flushed, and tea spilt into a saucer.

‘You and
Tata!
‘ Ewa settled herself on the floor, her plate of toast on her lap. ‘Did you have a wonderful love affair?'

Babcia shook her head. ‘What do you know about such things?'

Anna poured cups of tea with care. ‘She has been reading too many comics.'

‘No I haven't.'

‘She listens to the radio,' said Jerzy. ‘Pop songs, under the bedclothes. I can hear it.'

‘Prig,' said Ewa.

‘You must never tell tales,' said Dziadek, reaching to Anna for his cup.

‘It is time they had separate rooms,' said Anna, passing it.

‘Yes!' said Ewa, and her toast slid to the floor. ‘Yes, yes! Can I have the little room, the junk room? Please?'

‘I'll think about it,' said Anna, and sipped her tea.

‘Oh, thank you, Mama.' She bent to pick up the toast, and took another mouthful. ‘
Were
you madly in love?'

Babcia sighed, and rolled her eyes. ‘What a child …'

‘I just want to think of them being happy, that's all,' Ewa mumbled. ‘After the war, and everything.'

‘Thank you,' said Anna, exasperated. ‘We were very happy, yes.'

A walk beneath pine trees, on a carpet of needles and warm sandy soil. A dazzling sky. Insects buzzing, a honeyed sun slanting through the trees, nothing to be afraid of, no need even to think. The castle where we were stationed was on the hillside, old and crumbling, with scuttling rats, but even those didn't bother us. We were all at school again, studying for our exams without fear of being discovered, well fed, staying up late to talk and talk and talk, spending the afternoons swimming, rambling over the hills, almost dizzy with the heat and the smell of herbs and wild flowers, or walking in the pine woods, high above the bay. Lots of us fell in love, then.

‘Anna?'

‘Yes?'

‘When we go back to Poland … if we are separated … will we keep in touch?'

‘Oh, yes. I hope so. I do hope so, Jan.'

His arm round my shoulders, drawing me close; the heavenly smell of the pines. Our first kiss. My first kiss. Everything else forgotten.

We were happy once, Ewa. We did have a wonderful love affair. And it didn't occur to us, then, that we would never go back to Poland.

A long strip of neon lit this half of the empty office, but beneath it, at his drawing board, Jan was enclosed by the circle of light from an anglepoise, shining on to the thick grey tracing paper and dark ink lines of the plan he was working on. His desk stood next to one of the white-painted metal-framed windows which ran all along the thirties building of the engineering works: in the day, he overlooked the car park, and the road beyond the high brick wall and tall open gates. Now, he could see nothing but the wintry wet blackness of the panes. At the side of the drawing board, among the clutter of pens, an ashtray overflowed; Jan drew deeply on the last of his cigarette and stubbed it out, coughing.

He leaned back in the swivel chair and looked at the board, seeing beyond the lines the shape of the completed machine, oiled, pounding into life, working precisely. At the next desk, some few feet along the wall the plan drawing for a baffle plate was smudged and uncompleted, even though the deadline was for Monday. No chance that Pete would work later than eight, even with overtime, nor come in at a weekend. He was like most of them, did what was adequate, just, and pushed off, never giving another thought to it all until the next day. Jan was the best draughtsman they'd had here in years, he knew he was, better even than the head of section, who'd left to join Ford for a fortune – Jan could have taken his job, no question, but he wouldn't. It was his own work he was interested in, not the others', not having to keep them up to the mark. They thought he was odd and aloof, he knew, but he didn't care. Even Tomek, who'd joined round about the same time, called him an arrogant Pole, but jokingly. Tomek spent most of his spare time in the Balham Club, drinking; he'd been back to Poland, visiting a cousin in Poznań for holidays several times – something Jan would never do. After Yalta, taking British citizenship had been out of the question, and it was impossible to return there with just a travel document. In any case, to go back was to give currency to the communists.

On the desk behind him, the phone began to ring. Jan got up and went to answer it, knowing it would be Anna. His parents had his number, too, but they never bothered him here.

‘
Tak?
Yes?'

‘Jan … have you got very much more to do?'

‘Perhaps another hour or two – why?'

He heard a sigh, quickly suppressed. ‘Nothing – we'd just like to see you, that's all. Jerzy has been asking for you.' A hesitation. ‘He said something about a film? That he'd asked if you could take him one day?'

‘Yes, some cowboy thing, I remember. I'll try next weekend, all right?'

‘Lovely – I'll tell him.'

‘No, don't raise his hopes. I may not be able to.'

A pause. ‘I see.'

He could hear the children shrieking in the background. ‘What's all the noise?'

‘Just bathtime, high spirits. We've been rather cooped up today, with the rain. I've been telling them stories – and your parents came to tea.'

‘Not more war stories, Anna – you know I don't like it.'

More shrieks from the bathroom. Anna was calling: ‘Quiet, you two! I'm talking to Tata.' Then, to Jan: ‘I don't understand why, I really don't.'

‘Just – it's gone. You know what I mean.'

‘But it's part of their heritage,' she said slowly. ‘I like to tell them – so do your parents.' Another hesitation, then: ‘Jan?'

‘Yes? If you want me to come home, I'd better get on.'

‘It's just that … Ewa kept asking me about how we met, what it was like. If … if we'd had a wonderful love affair.' He could hear her trying to make light of it.

‘And what did you say?'

‘I told her how happy we were, then. Well, I mean, I didn't say anything, really, but … we were, weren't we? When we met, and – and everything …' She trailed off.

Impossible to equate this hesitant, even awkward wife, who had seemed for a long time to belong only to her children, with the girl he'd wanted almost as soon as he saw her. She'd been laughing with a group of friends, wandering on a blazing afternoon out of the little town and up towards the flowery hillside above the bay.

Everyone had needed to fall in love, then.

‘Jan?'

‘Yes,' he said, matter of factly.

‘It made me think about it all again – about whether it had to go so wrong. It does seem so sad, such a waste …'

Jan picked up the phone and carried it, trying to reach his cigarettes. They were just too far away.

‘I'll try and get home earlier,' he said. ‘Perhaps we can talk about it.'

‘That would be – very nice. Thank you. If – if you could get here before the children are asleep? Just for once.'

He looked at his watch. There was a Sunday evening bus in half an hour. ‘I'll try.'

‘See you soon, then. You've got your umbrella?'

He smiled. ‘Yes, Anna, I've got my umbrella. Goodbye.'

‘Goodbye.'

Jan put down the receiver and walked back to his desk. He lit a cigarette, quickly, and looked again at the plan on the drawing board. Outside, it began to rain again, pattering hard against the uncurtained windows. He paced up and down, imagining the children and Anna, talking all afternoon about the war.

In the years since he had come here, the war, and Poland itself, had gradually become sealed away into a part of himself he no longer visited – a distant country, like childhood, to which he could never return. It wasn't just a case of refusing to be like Tomek, and the others in the Club, who went back year after year. Deep down, he did not want to go back, even if it were possible: he didn't want to revisit the streets and squares of Warsaw which he had grown up in, and seen bombarded into ruins, and almost died for.

The rain was slowing down – if he were going to catch the bus, he should leave now. He stubbed out his cigarette, carefully replaced all the caps on his pens, and covered the plan with a sheet of paper. He switched off the anglepoise lamp, and the long cold strip of neon, and pushed through the swing doors. He walked quickly down the stairs, having a sudden, unbidden flash of memory: Anna, her dark head against his shoulder, her arm round his waist, as they walked in the pine forests high above the bay. Falling in love, if that's what it had been, had blotted out everything, then.

They sat at the table in their dressing gowns, having their supper. Outside, behind the curtains, the rain had stopped, but every now and then they could hear wet sounds: a dripping gutter, footsteps in the puddles, a car or bicycle swishing down the road. Burek lay dozing again in front of the fire – Dziadek had taken him out, just for a few minutes, and the room smelt of damp dog, and wet hair: the children always had their hair washed on Sunday nights, to start the school week clean. Ewa would be leaving primary school, and going to the convent next year. Her foot swung under the table, back and forth.

‘Mama?'

‘Take your elbows off the table, please.'

‘Sorry. Mama?'

‘And stop swinging your foot.'

She rolled her eyes. ‘Mama!'

‘Yes.'

‘Can we have a record player for Christmas?'

‘A record player … whatever next?'

‘So she can listen to her soppy pop songs,' said Jerzy. ‘I don't want one.'

‘You don't have to listen, do you? Not if I have a room to myself.' Ewa turned her back on him, exaggeratedly. ‘Please, Mama. Please. Everyone's got one – I wouldn't have to go to Janet's all the time, then, would I? Please.'

‘Oh, sssh! We'll see. I'd have to ask Tata.' Anna looked at the clock above the fire. ‘He should be home any minute, he said he'd try to be home before bedtime.' She smiled at them. ‘That's nice, isn't it?'

‘You look pretty, Mama,' said Ewa. ‘Have you put lipstick on, or something?'

‘Just a little. Now – do either of you want any more?'

‘No, thanks.'

‘No, thank you. Mama?'

‘Yes, Jerzy?'

‘In the war … in the war, what happened to Tata exactly?'

‘Oh, Jerzy, I think we've talked enough about all that for one day, don't you?'

‘I do,' said Ewa. She stretched, knocking her glass and saving it just in time. ‘Can I get down?'

‘Yes, go and brush your hair by the fire, make sure it's quite dry.'

‘All right.' She slid off her chair.

‘But Mama …' Jerzy was frowning, flushed.

Anna reached out a hand. ‘Have you got a temperature? No, I don't think so, you're just tired. All this talk – it's high time you were in bed.'

‘Mama!' He moved away from her hand. ‘I just want you to tell me one thing, all right? What happened to Tata's jaw? And what did he get his medal for?'

Anna shook her head. ‘That's two things. I expect he'll tell you all about it himself, one day.'

‘Tonight?'

‘No, darling, not tonight, it's much too late, and – and he doesn't really like talking about it. Don't ask him, will you?'

‘You tell me, then.'

‘Oh, Jerzy, do shut up,' said Ewa from the fire.

‘Shut up yourself! I just want to
know
, that's all.'

‘All right, all right, calm down now.' Anna ran her hands through her hair. ‘Tata was wounded because the little house in the Old Town which they were defending in the Uprising was attacked by the Germans, and Tata killed one of them. He was fired at, and the bullet hit his face. And his friend, who was next to him, was very badly wounded also, and in fact I think almost all the boys in their unit were killed in that attack. Then, later, when everyone was ordered to leave the Old Town, Tata carried the wounded boy all the way through the sewers – perhaps two miles, in the dark, imagine. He was given his medal for bravery then, and for the part he played in the fighting later. By that time his poor friend had died.'