The Winter Guest (30 page)

He set the raft into the water, holding it steady as Helena climbed on.

Sam handed the children to her, his movements jerky with haste. “It’s all right,” she soothed, feeling Dorie’s body tighten once more.

Sam pushed them from the bank, soaking one leg in the icy water. “Stay low,” he whispered.

Helena clutched the children close as Sam leaped aboard, causing the raft to wobble slightly. “Careful,” she cautioned. None of them would survive even a few minutes in the freezing water. She pressed them flat to the raft and placed herself atop them, bracing for another shot to ring out. But as the current carried them, the air grew still. Whoever had fired at them seemed not to have followed.

They began to drift sideways downstream. Tree branches bowed above them beneath the weight of snow and icicles that hung from them in an arch like jagged, menacing teeth. A piece of discarded burlap lay on the raft. Helena covered the children with it, then draped one hand protectively across them. She began to paddle with the other hand, the water biting into her skin until it went numb and she could no longer feel the cold. Sam paddled on the far side, the two of them moving in tandem, willing the raft through the icy water.

Farther along now, the hills on either side of the river grew steeper and the trees gave way to sheer rock face, worn by the water that had coursed through the gorge for centuries. She had been here once as a child on a summer rafting trip so distant she might have imagined it. The current moved them more quickly now, pushed by the heavy fall rains and snow.

“There!” Helena pointed, spying the break in the gorge that would bring them to the bridge, but the current threatened to hurtle them beyond their target. She paddled harder, steering them toward the bank. Sam reached for a branch that jutted out, trying to pull them into the shore. The raft banged into a rock and lurched suddenly, sending him flailing into the water.

“Sam!” Helena cried too loudly, forgetting the risk of being detected once more. She could not reach him without letting go of the children. Desperately, she steered the raft in his direction. It was no use—they were losing him.

Sam reached his arms high above the surface of the water, clutching the edge of the raft, and hoisted himself up. It wobbled precariously under his weight and she clung to the children desperately, willing the wood craft to level. Sam lay across the raft, gasping for air. Helena moved to dry his face with the fabric of her skirt, but he waved her away. “You’ll freeze, too.”

Helena looked at the shore. They had come so much farther than they should have and they had to find a place to pull in on the far bank before they were carried past the navigable part of the river to the shoals that would tear the raft to pieces.

Sam sat up, seeming to sense her urgency. “There.” He indicated a narrow break in the rocks on the far shore. They paddled furiously for several minutes, seeming to stand still against the current. “This isn’t working,” she began. Sam rose to his knees, causing the raft to tilt dangerously. As they neared the bank, Sam leaped off, grimacing at his re-immersion into the frigid water that reached his calves as he pulled them in.

Abandoning the raft, Helena and Sam carried the children up the steep bank. They pushed forward for the cover of the trees, the final swath of forest that separated them from the train station. Sam’s labored breathing matched her own as they navigated the unfamiliar slope.

They reached the top of the hill. The land here was not even, as Helena had expected. Instead, it dropped off into a steep gorge. As they caught their breath, Helena looked down into the bottom of the chasm. She could see something stacked there, snow-covered and piled higher than her head if she’d been standing beside it. At first she thought it was additional rafts, broken ones perhaps, piled high for scrap or repair. She took a step closer to the edge, stumbling and nearly slipping down the hill. Sam grabbed her. “Helena, no.” His voice was terse with caution.

They were not boats, she realized looking closer, but bodies. A pile of corpses filled the gaping hole in the ground. Sam turned swiftly away so that Dorie could not see, but Helena stood transfixed. It was not just the elderly and infirm as it had been in the hospital, but people of all ages, women and children, lifeless and frozen into the earth. They were naked, stripped of their glasses and their clothes and the possessions that linked them to the outside life they had once known, meshed together arms and breasts and hair. Even without their clothing, Helena knew that they were Jews.

“Darling, don’t...” Sam drew her close, trying to shield her view, but it was too late. She pulled away from him, unable to look away or deny the truth any longer. It was not just about labor camps and ghettos, she realized then. This was about the shooting they had heard, why the little girl was running away, what Sam had been trying to save them from. Had he known the full truth? She had faulted the Americans for failing to see. But she was no better living just miles from the destruction and burying her head in the sand. This was no longer just pity, though—the fate of those poor souls might well have been their own, and still could be. Helena sunk to her knees. She simply could not go a step farther.

She looked back across the horizon, thinking of her brother and sister, now miles away. Though she had never before believed in God she found herself looking up at the sky with more faith than she had ever felt, asking Him and their parents and whoever else might be up there to help them make it through.

Then she stood. For Dorie and Karolina’s sake, she had to keep going. “Sam?” She turned to find the space behind her empty. Sam, too, had crumpled to his knees, shaking.

“We’re not going to make it,” he said hollowly.

Helena was flooded with panic. Sam was her strength and to see him like this was unfathomable.

Then steeling herself, she took his hand and knelt before him. It was no less terrible for her, but she forced herself to focus on the path ahead. “Don’t say that. We can do this. You owe me a dance, remember? I’d like a trip to the seaside, too. Come.” She helped him to his feet, careful not to show her fear at how Sam’s wet clothes had already begun to freeze. It was her turn to be the strong one now. She peered through the trees in the direction of the station. Though it surely stood just a kilometer or so to the other side of the forest, it seemed a lifetime away.

Sam and the girls watched her, helpless and expectant, unable to make it on their own. Helena took off her scarf and fashioned a sling for the baby. “Get on my back,” she instructed Dorie, who eyed her skeptically as she knelt. When Dorie complied, Helena straightened. “Don’t let go.” Dorie nodded in silent assent. Helena staggered under the weight of the two children and the searing pain in her leg. She stumbled and started to say that she could not do it. Then she sensed Alek’s presence, showing her how to be strong. Energy surged through her.

But Sam still knelt motionless. With her free hand, Helena reached down and touched his shoulder. He looked up, eyes wild and desperate. Her fingers cupped his chin. “We can do this.” Seeming to draw strength from her, he stood uncertainly. “Come.” Lacing her fingers in Sam’s, Helena half led, half dragged him through the forest. The station was just ahead now, a lone light in the woods.

25

Ruth started up the hill, stepping with great effort through the snow, which soaked through her stockings at midcalf. But after only a few minutes, she stopped, panting and weary in that way she had been in recent days. She looked up hopefully, but saw that she had only gone a few meters. The cottage was still near, and the path ahead through the forest long and steep. Suddenly the magnitude of the task she had taken on unfurled before her. She had volunteered from a place so deep that she scarcely recognized it, a need to redeem herself for all that she had done to hurt Helena, for assuming the worst about her sister and all of the consequences that flowed from that. But now she faltered, remembering how difficult the journey through the woods would be. She had only gone as far as the chapel last time and that was almost too much. She could not fathom how to find Michal. If she did find him, she would have to tell him the awful truth about Mama in order to convince him to leave. And even if she managed that, how would they possibly reach the others?

Snow began to fall gently around her. Ruth turned back over her shoulder, seized with the urge to call Helena for help as she had done so many times over the years. If she ran after Helena and the others now, she could still catch them and go with them. Helena would understand. She would concede that her sister had been right, that she was not strong enough to make the journey. Surely Helena would agree that they should switch places. But Helena and Sam had already crossed the field and disappeared into the woods with the younger children. Ruth was too late.

Sam.
As she forced herself to press onward, she relived the moment when he’d collapsed onto the cottage floor the previous night. Ruth had stared at him in disbelief. Sam could have saved himself and fled for good. Instead, he had returned to the danger. He had risked it all...for Helena. After, when they’d stood awkwardly on opposite sides of the room, Ruth feared the tension between them would be so palpable that Helena would guess what had happened. But Sam’s face had remained blank as he addressed her, as though meeting Ruth for the first time. It was as if, in his joy at reuniting with Helena, he had simply forgotten.

Sam had spoken to the children of a dog. But it wasn’t the dog who kept him company here, she thought, remembering the frozen mongrel down by the river. No, Sam was talking about one back home, and the life they would all have in America. Ruth could picture it then, Sam and Helena happily married, a home for the children—a picture complete without her. He would make, she realized with sadness and longing for all that could not be, a wonderful father.

From below there came the sound of a vehicle. Ruth spun around once more. Was someone coming for her? A military jeep emerged into view through the trees and drove directly to the cottage below. She wondered if it was the policeman who had come again. But three men emerged from the jeep, and even from this distance she could tell their uniforms were German military. Fear gripped her. It was no coincidence that they had come to the house now, so soon after the family had gone. No, the neighbors must have seen them slip away and reported them—or perhaps someone had betrayed Sam.

Waves of recrimination rose in her mind: if Helena had not found Sam and he had not come back for her none of this would have happened.

No, her sister had been right, Ruth realized. Even if they had done nothing and the truth about their family had not come to light, it still would have come to this eventually. The Germans would not have spared them if they stood quietly by. And it did not matter who was to blame. In just minutes, the men at the house would realize the family was gone and fan out, searching. She could not wait. She turned and ran up the hill, in her mind willing Helena and Sam to move faster with the children.

Soon, though, her gait slowed. Her legs—her right leg more precisely—inexplicably began to burn. The air was bitingly cold now and snow began to fall more heavily in icy daggers against her face, cutting into her cheeks. She could feel her cracked lips begin to bleed. In the distance, a noise like thunder crackled, though of course, that was impossible. This sound was sharp, but she wouldn’t let herself think about guns and bullets. The wind whipped harder, as though it had a will of its own, trying to prevent her progress.

An image of Mama flashed into her mind, the secrets she had kept buried for so many years. Ruth was suddenly angry—she had thought herself closer to their mother than anyone, yet her mother had kept this enormous lie from her. All of the emotions she’d managed to sequester for so long welled up, threatening to burst forth. Ruth fought back her tears. She considered, for a moment, simply giving up.

Something pulled at her stomach then, like the love she’d felt for Karolina and the others, only deeper and more intense. “No,” she said aloud. It was about more now than just herself, about even more than Michal. Joy surged through her, eclipsing her anxiety like a great wind snuffing out a tiny flame. She had this one thing, and it was wholly her own. A feeling rose in her, strong and maternal. There was new life inside her—she knew that for certain now—and she could protect this child. But to do so, she had to survive. Her child had no future here. Their best—and only—hope for safety lay not in the one place that had always been shelter, but in going to the unknown. She owed it to her baby, to all of them, to try.

Should she have told Sam that she was pregnant? No, Sam had blocked out what had happened and moved on. Soldier that he was, he knew he had to focus on their survival—which was exactly what she needed to do now. Ruth turned back, shoulders squared, steeling herself. Michal was out there in the woods somewhere, alone and undoubtedly scared. She was the only one who could find him. Now she was needed. She had a purpose, a place.

Something slammed into her from behind without warning. She flew into the snow, breastbone thudding against an unseen tree stump. A wolf, she thought fleetingly, remembering the warnings Helena had given. But then a voice snarled in her ear low and deep.
“Gdzie idzie?”
Where are you going?
It was the policeman, Wojski, all pretense of courtesy now gone and his grip vicelike on her shoulder.

Ruth glanced desperately out of the corner of her eye. Had the men in the jeep reached her so quickly? But the policeman was alone, his mission personal. His hands traveled lower. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. She remembered the knife Helena had pressed her to take. If only she had it now. Her hands flailed, and she desperately grasped handfuls of snow and ice as he reached for her skirt. She managed to rise to her hands and knees and kicked backward, her foot tangling in her cape. Her boot grazed the policeman, who let out a wild cry, inflamed by her attempt. He reached beneath her skirt, pressed his weight upon her. She pushed back, swinging wildly.

Ruth fell forward again, slicing her cheek against something sharp. She reached for it; her fingers closed around a rock, swinging backward but missing. The policeman slammed her face into the snowdrift with an angry grunt. Closer now, he pressed his forearm against the back of her neck. She gasped for breath as ice filled her mouth and nose. She prayed that she would lose consciousness before the assault.
“Kurwa,”
he snarled.
Whore.

Something snapped in her then. Ruth swung blindly with the rock a second time, letting forth her rage, and connected with a sickening crunch. The policeman fell away from her and was still. She pulled herself up, shaking. Wojski lay on the ground, a halo of blood fanning out around his head and seeping into the snow. Whether he was breathing, she could not tell. Her vision blurred. Standing, she wiped at her cheek and ran farther into the forest.

When she had gone another twenty meters, she looked back. The policeman had not followed her. Her stomach spasmed. Something warm trickled down her leg and she found herself praying it was not blood, for she now desperately wanted to hold on to this life inside her. She had to keep going. Gulping for air, she started again with new vigor, more determined with every step. She could do this. Her limbs were strong from lifting children, eyes keen from protecting them from the worst.

Ruth forged ahead, pressing into the wind. The ground shook and in the distance behind the house the sky glowed red, filling her with terror. How close were Helena and the girls to the fighting? She pressed on, more desperate than ever to get to Michal.

At the fork, she paused, wishing Michal might have left a clue as she did in the game she played with Dorie. Helena had explained that the path divided, but she had not told Ruth which way to go, leaving that judgment to her in the moment. The chapel was much closer, so she could check there first. But if she was wrong, the detour would put her even farther behind Michal.

She peered into the woods ahead. Something flickered, so faintly she might have imagined it. It was a light, coming from the direction of the chapel. Of course—Michal had known about the chapel from Helena and must have gone there to take shelter. She imagined him sitting by a small fire, waiting for her. She had found him, and the first part of the journey was over.

Above the chapel in the trees, Ruth envisioned Sam and Helena with the children, starting a new life. But she did not feel angry or sad now, just contented that she had put things right. She had her own child to think about now. And Michal was waiting for her, waiting for her to bring him home.