Spring Will Be Ours (9 page)

Central Station, too, was in darkness, except for a light in the ticket office, by which they made their way in the crowd to the street outside. The trams on Nowogrodzka stood empty on the rails.

‘Come on.' said Tata quickly. ‘We'll have to walk.'

‘Oh God,' Anna said. ‘Teresa …' She thought of her alone in the apartment, wondering where they were.

‘We'll try to telephone.' But the only working phone they passed had a long queue, and they hurried on. The pavements on Jerozolimskie Avenue were covered in broken glass; great ugly holes gaped in the windows of shops and offices. There were few people except other passengers from the station, and almost no traffic.

‘Hey!' Jerzy said suddenly. ‘There's a taxi!' He dropped his rucksack and darted out into the road, waving and calling. The taxi pulled up and he flung open the door and called back to them. ‘Quick!'

They ran up and threw the tent and rucksacks on to the back seat.

‘Praga?' asked Tata, pushing Anna and Jerzy inside, and the driver nodded. ‘We'll try. Ten złotys.' Tata climbed in to the front seat and banged the door, and they drove off through the unlit streets towards the bridge.

‘Tell us …' said Tata. ‘We've just got back from Wilno.'

The driver reached for his Mewa cigarettes, on the ledge above the wheel. ‘It started first thing on the first – they bombed the racecourse down in Mokotów, about five in the morning.' He lit a cigarette and drew a deep breath. ‘I've been smoking twice the usual. You might be safer in Praga, but …'

Tata asked about their street.

‘I haven't heard anything, I expect it's all right. You know the English and French have declared, don't you?'

‘Thank God.'

‘On the third: you should've seen the crowds outside the British Embassy. You couldn't move on Nowy Świat – they were singing “Warszawianka”, and “God Save the King”, waving flags, throwing flowers …' He took another puff.

‘Does that mean it'll be over quite soon?' Jerzy asked.

The driver shrugged. ‘I haven't seen an English plane yet. But if anyone thinks Warsaw's going to surrender …' He looked at Tata. ‘Are you reporting tomorrow?'

Tata nodded. ‘And you?'

‘I already have – I'm just waiting to hear where they'll send me.'

Listening in the back, Anna stared at the dim lights on the dashboard, and clenched her hands on the seat. The cigarette smoke wafted towards her and she coughed. Tata turned round. ‘All right?'

She nodded, a pool of nervousness flooding her stomach. They had reached the bridge: a siren wailed, and there was a sudden burst of gunfire. Anna grabbed Jerzy's arm. ‘What's that?'

‘Anti-aircraft fire,' said the driver. ‘Don't worry – we'll be all right.' Then the sky was lit by a flare and as they raced over the bridge the whole of the Vistula gleamed. ‘We're across!' the driver yelled, and Anna and Jerzy lifted their heads and turned to look through the back window. The black shape of a plane circled once, then flew slowly downriver, searching.

Anna found herself shaking. Jerzy put his arm round her and she felt him trembling too.

‘Well done. We're almost there,' Tata was saying to the driver.

‘Think I'll make this my last fare – I don't like staying inside, it feels as if I'm doing something useful out here. But my wife will be worried sick.'

‘And mine also,' said Tata. ‘This is the street – thank God they haven't touched it. We'll walk now; you get home.'

‘I'll take you to the door. What's the number?'

‘Thirty-four.'

He pulled up outside the apartment house, and they got out quickly, looking up to the two big windows of the sitting room. The curtains were closely drawn. Tata paid the driver. ‘Goodnight. Thank you.'

He nodded. ‘All the best. You get to bed, young lady.'

Anna smiled weakly. ‘Goodnight.'

He drove away, turning into a side street, and Tata felt for his keys. Inside, they walked quickly up the stairs. There was no sound from the ground-floor apartments but from behind their own door they could just hear the wireless. Tata turned the key. They went in, saw a low light from the sitting room, and at once Teresa was in the hall.

‘Tomasz!' Anna and Jerzy stood watching as she ran towards their father and into his arms. For a few moments they held each other, and Anna realized that she had never before seen them give each other anything but the lightest kiss on the cheek. Then Tata gently drew away, and Teresa looked at Anna and Jerzy and burst into tears. ‘Come here.' They hugged her, and she said: ‘I thought you'd never get back. They're bombing railway lines everywhere …'

‘I think we might have made one of the last journeys,' said Tata. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Oh, yes, just so worried. You must be very hungry. I'll make something at once.'

They followed her into the kitchen. ‘I'm starving,' said Jerzy.

‘It's been difficult to shop. Only a couple of places were open at all yesterday, but I've managed to stock up a little.' Teresa was slicing a loaf, spreading plum jam she'd made earlier in the summer. ‘Here – have this while I make some soup.'

‘I'm going to wash,' said Tata. He went out to the bathroom and then they heard him go into the surgery and close the door. The faint ting of the telephone receiver being picked up sounded in the hall.

‘Reporting,' said Jerzy, helping himself to another slice of bread.

Anna sat at the table and watched Teresa stirring the pan on the stove. ‘Perhaps he won't have to go yet,' she said. ‘He might not have to go at all – if the British and the French send help soon, he might not have to.' Teresa went on stirring.

After a while they heard the telephone ting again, faintly, as if the receiver were being put down with care, and they waited. Silence. Then the surgery door clicked open and they heard him walk down the corridor.

‘Well,' he said, standing in the doorway. ‘I leave tomorrow morning – for the hospital in Brześć.'

‘Tomorrow?' Teresa left the stove and came across to him, putting a pale hand on his sleeve. ‘Really, tomorrow?'

‘I'm afraid so.' He put his arm round her, and smiled at Anna and Jerzy. ‘I don't imagine it will be for very long. And you two are to look after Teresa for me until I come home.'

‘Where's Brześć?' asked Anna.

Tata rolled his eyes. ‘All your geography lessons, and still you know nothing.'

‘It's somewhere in the east,' said Jerzy.

‘Near Russia?' Anna asked.

‘Quite near the Russian border, yes.'

‘Oh.' She thought for a moment. Tata would be safer there, wouldn't he? Surely the Germans would never get that far.

‘And now,' he said, ‘I think we are all very tired. Let's have some supper and an early night. The soup smells wonderful.'

As they ate, they could hear more bursts of anti-aircraft fire.

Teresa described how she had woken on the morning of the first and switched on the wireless as usual. ‘It was like a play,' she said. ‘I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They called for great care in using arms, to save them as much as possible.' She looked at Tata. ‘We are horribly ill-defended.'

He nodded. ‘I'm afraid it's true.'

In bed, Anna and Jerzy lay listening in the dark. They could hear Tata and Teresa moving about the apartment, turning out lights, putting dishes away, switching off the wireless, and locking the front door. The evening sounds they always heard.

They both appeared like shadows at the door. ‘Goodnight,' said Tata. ‘Sleep well – try not to worry.'

‘Goodnight, Tata. Goodnight, Teresa.'

Then they went out to their own room, and closed the door.

It was very early in the morning when they woke to find Tata standing between their beds, already dressed in his uniform and carrying his leather suitcase.

Anna sat up, confused. Pale grey light was filtering through the curtains, and it felt cold. ‘You're not going already?'

‘I've got to, darling.'

She began to cry, still half-asleep. ‘Please don't. Please.'

‘I'm sure it won't be for long,' he said. ‘Please be brave.'

Jerzy was out of bed, pulling on his dressing gown. ‘Come on, Anna, let's see him to the door.'

Teresa was in the hall, washed and dressed, her hair brushed neatly, her eyes red. She smiled thinly as they joined her: Anna swallowed. Then Tata turned to hug each one, and went to the front door. He fumbled at the latch, then laughed. ‘It's still locked.'

‘Good,' said Jerzy. ‘I hope you've lost the key.'

‘I wish I had,' Tata said. ‘Unfortunately … Teresa, dear, get it, will you?' She went silently to the kitchen, came back and unlocked the door herself. ‘There,' she said. ‘Now you can go. Come back very soon.'

‘I will. Perhaps you could wave from the window?'

They ran to the sitting room, and waited, listening to his footsteps going down the stairs, and the front door bang. They saw him going down the street, which looked damp and cold, turning to wave, a tall, kind-faced man in a uniform which already made him look as if he belonged to an army barracks, and not with them. He smiled up at them as they waved back, and blew them a kiss. Then he walked away.

Within days the bombardment of Praga was so heavy that Teresa decided they should try to get across the river to the city centre, and stay with Wiktoria. Marta left to join her own family: they all cried as they kissed her goodbye, and stood at the window to watch her go, too, but running, not like Tata. Then Teresa packed one large suitcase between them, and the last of the food: not a single shop was open, now; they had flour, half a kilo of sugar and a bag of potatoes. She tried to phone Wiktoria but couldn't get through.

‘I don't imagine things will have been any easier for her,' she said. ‘We'd better take everything we have.'

Since Tata left, Teresa was the only one to have ventured out, and that was three days ago. They left the apartment house early in the morning, hurried down the street and turned into the main road. Then they stopped, and for a moment Anna lost all sense of who or where she was. Jerzy whistled. ‘Phew …'

Half the street was filled with rubble. The fronts of several houses had been completely blown away; in the rooms, pitifully exposed, broken furniture was flung up against walls; in one block a bath hung crazily from twisted pipes into a gaping hole. From beneath a heap of bricks Anna saw something bloody and horrible obtrude, and grabbed Teresa's arm. ‘What's that?'

‘I – I don't know.' Teresa's face was a sickly yellow. ‘Come on.'

The Kierbedzia Bridge was crowded with people running, carrying suitcases, bags of food, staring children. All through the city they passed bombed buildings, trams hurled from the rails, boarded shops and cafés; in one street a group of old men and women was digging frantically into the rubble, calling the same name over and over again: ‘Ryszard! Ryszard!' On another corner a woman stood with a baby in her arms, the apartment house behind her shattered into two ugly halves; she looked at them blankly as they hurried

Aunt Wiktoria's apartment in Hoz
^·
a was not far from the main telephone exchange; so far, though that seemed a likely target for the Germans, the street had suffered no damage. Inside the building, they climbed the stairs to Number 4 and rang the bell. There were voices from inside. ‘Who's with her?' Jerzy asked.

The door opened and Wiktoria, wearing her dressing gown, her hair unbrushed, stared at them. ‘Oh, my dears …' Behind her they could see through the open door to the living room three or four people huddled on the floor in blankets. ‘Come in,' she said, and led them to the kitchen, closing the living room door as they went past.

The kettle was on the stove. ‘I was just about to make tea for everyone. Put that case down, Jerzy, and get your stepmother a chair; she looks dreadful.'

‘Nonsense,' said Teresa, and began to sway.

‘Quick!' Jerzy and Anna rushed to help her sit down, Wiktoria pushed her head on to the table and waved at the sink. ‘Get her a glass of water.'

After a few moments Teresa raised her head and Anna held the glass to her lips. They were chalky white. She sipped, then nodded weakly. ‘Better…'

Wiktoria put a pot of tea on the table and set out a number of thick glasses. A pale young girl appeared in the doorway and nodded to them all.

‘Danuta,' said Wiktoria, ‘is from Poznań, the daughter of a dear friend. If she stays in Poznań she has no hope at all. Danuta, my dear, this is Teresa, my brother's wife, and his son and daughter, Jerzy and Anna. Sit down.' She began to pour out the tea. ‘And I'm afraid that this is all I can offer you.'

An elderly couple came in. ‘Danuta's parents,' said Wiktoria, and introduced them all again.

‘We've brought some food,' said Jerzy. ‘Flour, and –'

Wiktoria cut him off. ‘If you had come earlier, my dears, I should have given you my own bed. As it is, I have to tell you that every blanket I have is already being used and that you cannot possibly stay. However –' She got up and took a bunch of keys from a hook on the shelf by the stove. ‘Your cousin and his wife managed to get away in the first two days. With any luck, they are now well inside Romania, and their apartment is empty
^·
. You must go there – it's only a couple of blocks away, on Z órawia. Tell me about Tomasz. When did he go?'

She was like him, Anna thought, sipping hot weak tea and listening to Teresa describe Tata's hurried departure. Tall, well-built, made you feel safe. She wished they could stay.

Another woman joined them, and the kitchen began to feel crowded and uncomfortable. They got up to go. Wiktoria refused to take even a few potatoes. ‘We'll manage,' she said at the door, kissing them. ‘Just let's pray the British send help soon.'