22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [101]
Marysia was begging the soldier to forgive her.
‘You know I’m yours,’ she was saying, her hands pulling at the soldier’s arm. ‘I was going to tell you. Believe me. I was going to tell you about him, to hand him over to you. Mama, tell him.’
‘She’s right,’ cried her mother, lifting her head. ‘This man told us he was a doctor. We didn’t believe him. Marysia was going to tell you.’
The German soldier strode towards the old woman and lifted his gun. A shot rang out and she fell to the ground. Silvana gave a cry and then Aurek screamed and banged on the window. Silvana grabbed him, pushing her hand over his mouth.
Gregor looked up at the house, straight at her. The soldier looked over too, following Gregor’s gaze. They had both seen her. A cold sludge of fear numbed her, made her legs as heavy as stone. She took her hand off Aurek’s mouth.
‘Come out!’ yelled the soldier, waving his gun towards her. ‘You, in the house. Come out now.’
Silvana took Aurek’s hand and led him out onto the front porch.
‘If I tell you to run,’ she whispered to him, ‘you go as fast as you can. You just go.’
The soldier was younger than she had thought. If you took him out of his uniform and put him in peasant clothes, you might have thought him a younger brother to Marysia. And yet, with his gun in his hand, and anger flushing his cheeks, he held his ground and the rest of them stood silently watching him, obedient as sheep in a pen.
She took another step towards the small group in the yard. She was aware of movement behind the soldier and saw Antek, the old man, stumbling to his feet.
The soldier was still beckoning to Silvana. He looked her up and down, and she wondered if he was imagining her as his new mistress. Someone to take over from Marysia. All the time that he stared at Silvana, his eyes creeping over her, she knew he was unaware of the old man getting closer to him. She straightened her back and pushed her chest forwards, tried to swing her hips slightly as she walked. Maybe this was sheer madness, but the old man was so near to him, it was surely worth the attempt.
The soldier didn’t see the old man until Antek had his arms around his neck. As Antek pulled him down like a wrestler in a fairground ring, Marysia ran over to them, hitting and kicking the soldier in the back. Silvana let go of Aurek’s hand.
Gregor yelled at her. ‘Go! Get away while you can!’
He ran past the truck and down the farm track towards the forest.
Marysia yelled after him. And then, when it was obvious he wasn’t going to stop, she began to spit and scream at him. ‘Fuck you! Run, you coward. Fuck you!’
Silvana stared at his retreating figure for a second. Gregor was leaving? Running away?
Aurek was beginning to cry, his face twisted with fear. Antek and the soldier were on the ground, Marysia trying to grab the gun. Silvana looked around. She had to help them. She shook herself free from Aurek, picked up a stone jar on the ground and hurried towards the scrabbling group, smashing the jar across the soldier’s back.
The moment she did it she knew it had been a mistake. She hadn’t hit him hard enough; the jar had bounced off his shoulder. It was like smacking a wasps’ nest with a stick. All she’d done was drive him mad with rage and loosened Antek’s grip on him.
The soldier caught hold of Silvana’s skirts and pulled her down to the ground, lashing out at her with the side of his gun, hitting her cheek square on. Silvana saw stars in blackness. She could hear Marysia screaming and Aurek crying, his voice high-pitched among the rest of them. So this was how she was going to die, she thought, as the soldier’s fist smashed against her ribs. Not in snow but in the light