The Winter Guest (4 page)

Helena sat in silence for several minutes. There were things she wanted to ask her mother now, about how to make a good poultice for the goat’s wounded leg, and the way to get the cabinet above the stove to stop sticking. She wanted to tell her mother that Dorie had lost another tooth, how Karolina was starting to speak a bit. But she was never sure if hearing about the children would make Mama happy or more forlorn, or even if she remembered them at all.

She searched her mother’s face, looking for some words that would change it all. But she had stopped believing in magic years ago, and prayers were Ruth’s province. “Come back to us,” she said plaintively, knowing there would be no response.

Helena opened the drawer on the night table and busied herself taking inventory of the scant contents, taking note of the spare sock that was missing. She picked up her mother’s extra housecoat, which someone had shoved in the drawer without bothering to fold. There was blood at the collar. Helena bent hurriedly to check for a wound, and Mama winced, as though accustomed to a rough touch.

“Shh,” Helena soothed, willing herself to move more slowly. But there was no mark on her mother’s neck. Had the blood come from an old wound or had someone else worn the gown? She put it in her knapsack, replacing it with the fresh one she had brought with her.

“I should go,” she said finally. Guilt rose in her then as it always did at the notion that after she left Mama would again be all alone in this sad place. But she had to get home to help Ruth, and if she didn’t leave now she would not make it before dark. She searched her mother’s face for some reaction, but found none. No, the sadness about parting was all hers. Mama was already alone.

Helena left the hospital, retracing her steps through Kazimierz as she made her way from the city. The gray clouds had grown thick and ominous now, the air biting. The earlier dampness under her clothes had dried to an uncomfortable chill. As she wound her way around the base of Wawel Castle, Helena peered over her shoulder, inexplicably fearful that someone might be following her. Spotting nothing unusual, she pressed forward, heart beating just a bit too quickly. Despite her anxiety, she could not help but feel a touch of excitement. For so long it had seemed that everything moved around her while she stood in place like the moon behind the clouds. Now with the explosion she was sure she had heard the previous night and the sighting of the German jeep, the world had shifted slightly and suddenly life felt different.

As she crossed the wide bridge that spanned the river, her thoughts turned to her father. The priest had called Tata a hero for stepping in front of the runaway wagon and blocking it from hitting a child. Helena knew he was the furthest thing from that, though. Tadeusz Nowak was a drunk and he had most likely gotten hit because he was too inebriated to move out of the wagon’s path, even at ten o’clock in the morning. But she said nothing, accepting the neighbors’ gifts of sympathy, the soups and baked goods that flowed much more generously than if he had been found lying in a pile of vodka and vomit.

Helena was the one who had answered the knock the day they came about Tata and followed the constable to the site. There were details she would spare Ruth and the others about the way he had soiled himself, how his neck hung at a funny angle like a broken doll. She had focused instead at the hands and arms that were as familiar as her own.

Tata had been her counterpart, the one most like her, and with his death a part of her had died, too. But after he was gone she discovered a newfound clarity and purpose, slipping into his role, taking charge of the wood and the hunting and their safety. She found she was capable of doing things that she had never been taught, as though a part of Tata had left his body in the moment he was struck down and leaped into hers.

An hour later, Helena reached the edge of the forest. She rubbed at the back of her hand where a bit of pine tar had stuck above the wound, contemplating her route. The road would have been faster, but she would take the high pass over the mountain so as not to risk encountering more Germans. She started forward. The terrain ahead was much more difficult, the rolling hills deceptive. It gave no indication of the steep slope, or the sharp stones that jutted out from the ground, marring the path. Helena navigated through the rocks, finding the familiar footholds. She had come this way every week as a child on walks with Tata. She had loved the springtime best when they would gather mushrooms, father and daughter making their way through the woods in the predawn darkness, the silence only broken by the sloshing of his flask.

The goodwill of the neighbors had evaporated quickly after their father’s death, as people pulled back to whisper about how the Nowak children—now virtually orphans—would survive. Helena did not mind—she preferred their distance to the overkindness she had never quite believed. There was speculation, too, about the lack of a possible suitor for either twin. Ruth had had someone for a time, a big strapping boy called Piotr. He had called on her faithfully each week, bringing the odd bit of candy for the children. But then the business with their father had happened and Piotr had come one last time to speak with Ruth. Helena had not been able to hear their conversation, but when she had peered around the side of the barn she spied them down by the stream, Piotr handing back the brown scarf her sister had knitted for him, Ruth pushing it away so that it dropped to the ground. Helena had rushed out afterward to collect it so the scarce wool could be reused.

When Ruth had come back inside the house, Helena had faltered. She put her arm around Ruth’s shoulder, cringing at her own stiffness. “I’m sorry.”

Ruth shrugged off her arm and stepped away. “You never liked him.” Ruth’s tone was accusing. Helena wanted to deny it, but Ruth was right: she had not liked Piotr, and had resented that Ruth had something beyond their family. She had not wanted him to stay. But now he had hurt Ruth, though, and for that she wanted to kill him.

Though Ruth had not said, Helena knew that it was the children who had caused Piotr to run. No man wanted to take on the responsibility of caring for someone else’s family, especially not one with young mouths needing to be fed for so many years yet. There would be no marriage for her or Ruth now; of that she was sure. So they would go on working and keeping the children alive until they were big enough to fend for themselves. Michal perhaps would support them in a few years or the younger girls might someday marry; they were pretty enough. What else? Helena could plant a good-size garden in the spring and sell the extra bounty in town. She’d heard that the war had opened up jobs for the women left behind by the men forced to go and fight. But even if she could secure a work pass, traveling to the city once a week was hard enough; she could not commute daily and she could not leave Ruth alone with the children for longer than that.

As Helena paused to catch her breath, an unfamiliar scent tickled her nose. It was sweet yet acrid, like when the farmers burned brush in early autumn and something unintended got tossed into the fire, a dead squirrel perhaps. No one was burning this late in the season, though. Looking west, she noticed then a thick finger of dark smoke curling toward the sky. Where was it coming from? There were no factories in that direction and it was too far beyond the trees to be a forest fire.

A sudden rustling noise from the bushes made her jump. Recalling the German she’d encountered earlier, her heart pounded. But the noise had not come from the road. She scanned the side of the path. There had been stories of hungry wolves in these parts, but it was more likely a dog or raccoon. Something she might kill for food, if it was not too wounded or rabid. She heard the noise came again, this time more of a wheeze.

She reached for her knife. A voice not entirely her own told her to run. But instead, she drew closer to the bushes, curious. Beneath a scraggly pine tree there was a lump, too long to be an animal, huddled in a pile of leaves. As she neared, the air grew thick with the metallic smell of blood. She pushed aside the branches, then stopped with surprise. A man lay on his side, almost hidden by the leaves. He didn’t move, but is torso rose and fell with labored breaths.

Helena stared at him. Before today, she had not encountered anyone on her treks through the forest. “Who are you?” she demanded, hoping to sound braver than she felt. He did not respond. Fear rose up in her. No good could come of a meeting with a stranger and she was far from any help. “Who are you?” she repeated. A low, guttural moan escaped his throat. Helena studied the man, whose dark hair was pasted tight to his head by a mixture of blood and sweat. She relaxed slightly; he was in no shape to do her harm.

“Show me where you are hurt,” she said, more gently now. His arm, which had been covering his midsection, flopped in the direction of his right leg, but there was no visible injury. The stranger wore a uniform of some sort, dirt-caked and torn. She recalled the explosion from the previous night that she had taken to be a bomb. The Nazi jeep she’d encountered earlier had not been looking for her. The full danger of the situation crashed down upon her and she turned to flee.

“Please,” he croaked just above a whisper, and somewhere in her mind she registered the word as English. Her mind whirled: what was an American or British soldier doing here?

Freezing,
was her first thought as she turned back to him in spite of herself. He lay on the ground and his skin was a shade of blue-gray that she had never seen before. He needed shelter if he was to live. Without thinking, she reached for his arm and pulled as though to lift him, her fingers not quite wrapping around its thick girth. The man was heavier than she expected and did not move, but shrieked with pain, his cry echoing against the bareness of the trees.

“Spokój!”
she hissed, and he looked up, his brown eyes meeting hers, long lashes fluttering with fear. But she could tell from his expression that he did not speak Polish or was too disoriented to understand, so she raised her finger to her lips and shook her head to silence him.

The church, she remembered then. There was an old wooden chapel, about fifty meters farther along the path into the woods. But if she could not move him, how could she possibly get him there? “Come.” She knelt and put her arm around his shoulder, close to the stranger in a way that made her shiver. Then she tried to stand, more gently this time. But she stumbled under his weight. He fell forward, and as she went to lift him again he waved her off, dragging himself along the ground in a half crawl.

As he inched forward, she glanced over her shoulder nervously, willing him to move faster. Her skin prickled. A sharp barking cut through the stillness. “Hide,” she whispered frantically, pushing him into the thick bushes. There came a dull thud from the other side, followed by a cry. She crawled through the brush toward him. He had rolled down a steep ravine and into the stream that ran alongside the path. There was another bark, followed by footsteps. She peered out from the bushes, jumping back as a man with a shotgun appeared, an underfed German shepherd on a leash by his side. He did not wear a uniform like the German soldier she had encountered earlier on the road, but the clothes of an ordinary farmer (albeit one she did not recognize from the village). Perhaps he was just hunting or trapping.

A second man appeared from the opposite direction. “Anything?” His Polish was thick and peasantlike.

“A small chapel. But I found nothing there,” the other man replied. Helena’s anger rose. These men were searching for the soldier, doing the Germans’ bidding. Panic quickly overshadowed her fury as the dog sniffed along the edge of the path, drawing closer. Surely the animal would smell the soldier’s wounds.

Her heart raced as the dog stopped, its ugly snout just inches from her own face.
“Chocz!”
ordered the man holding the leash, tugging at it and forcing the dog to follow. They continued deeper into the forest.

A rasping noise came from behind her. Helena turned back toward the soldier, who lay on his back in the stream, seemingly oblivious to the icy water that trickled around him. Hurriedly she moved to him, pressing her hand to his mouth to muffle the sound. She looked over her shoulder, hoping the men had not heard. She wanted to admonish the man to be quiet once more, but he was too far gone for that. His face was ghostly white and he seemed to be struggling for each breath.

Quickly she reached down with both arms and, using her legs to brace, pulled him from the water onto the incline of the bank. “You have to help me get you to shelter,” she said. But his eyes were half-closed and she had no idea if he understood.

She checked the now-empty path once more. The men knew about the chapel. Did she still dare to take the soldier there? Though the men had already checked it, they could still come back. But she could not take him to her house—even if he could make the journey, the road out of the forest to their cottage was open and exposed. And leaving him out here meant certain death. There was no other choice—the chapel was his only hope.

She wrapped the soldier’s arm around her shoulder, cold water dripping from his hair and seeping into her collar. Bracing herself anew, she maneuvered him back onto the path. The force of his weight brought her to her knees once more. “Help me,” she pleaded, her voice a whisper. She held her breath as he dragged himself slowly the last few meters down the path, certain the men would return to discover them.

At last they reached chapel. It was no bigger than Helena’s cottage, but taller with an elongated knave. A wood-shingled roof overhung the building like a cap drawn close around the brow. The top of the steeple was completely gone, the mounted cross threatening to topple at any second. She had discovered the abandoned chapel as a child and played around it many times despite her mother’s admonishment lest the roof cave in and crush them. She had often wondered who would have cared enough to build a chapel, not big enough for more than a handful of worshippers, here in the woods, instead of just going to the church in town. And why had they stopped coming?