22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [28]
‘We had a plan to get him back to his family. Tomasz and I were going to take him home and then join the underground movement. We were being marched to a camp when we ducked out and ran into woodland. Franek fell over. The boy’s got two left feet. Down he goes and I stop running to help him.
‘The Russian guards came after us. I was trying to get Franek up, but his ankle was twisted badly. The guards were coming closer, so Tomasz turns round and goes back towards them, picking up rocks as he goes. He hurls them at the guards. Just stands there, aiming them while they open fire on him. I got Franek away, forced him to run. The boy won’t talk about what happened. He’s never mentioned Tomasz since.’
In the yard, Franek was still chasing chickens. Finally he caught one, lifted it high in the air and swung it, smashing its body against the water pump again and again. The chicken went limp and he dropped it on the ground. He stood over it, as if he thought it might just get up and run away. Bruno walked out into the yard and Janusz followed him. Franek had hit the bird so hard it was a bloody mess of feathers and smashed bones.
‘Is it dead?’ Franek asked.
Janusz kicked the bird gently with his foot. ‘Yes, it’s dead.’
‘Do you want another one? I can catch us another one.’
‘You catch it,’ said Bruno, pulling a penknife from his pocket, ‘and then give it to me. I’ll kill it.’
Janusz saw the penknife glint in Bruno’s thick hand. He saw the same flickering shine in Franek’s eyes as he turned on the chickens once again. It made him feel afraid. The boy looked quite mad.
Janusz went into the cottage. He piled sticks in the hearth and set a fire. He could hear Franek shouting and yelling in the yard. The sooner he left for Warsaw, he decided, the better.
Ipswich
The school is a large red-brick building with a playground in front and black metal railings around it. Two entrances have heavy lintels over the blue doors with the words girls and boys carved into weathered limestone. Girls play hopscotch and skip and boys kick footballs or stand in secretive groups swapping cigarette cards.
Aurek clings to Silvana, sinking his fingers into her coat and wrapping his skinny legs around her so tightly she yelps in pain. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes plead with her, but Silvana knows she cannot help him. Janusz is firm on this matter. Aurek has to go to school.
‘It’s only for a month,’ Janusz tells them both. ‘Then the school will break up for the summer holidays. He’s got to go sometime.’
The first day, the teacher tries to prise Aurek out of Silvana’s arms.
‘He’ll be absolutely fine,’ she says. ‘Come along with me, young man.’
By the time the woman has him in her grip, her face is red and the veins on her skinny neck stand out blue and angry-looking. Her voice is full of the strain of holding the boy. After a week of the same scenario, the teacher rolls her sleeves up as soon as they arrive, grabbing Aurek before he has a chance to wrap himself around Silvana.
‘Just go,’ she snaps at Silvana. ‘The boy will be fine if you just go. It’s always the mothers who are the problem, not the children.’
Silvana leaves, her heart broken by the sound of Aurek’s cries.
The second week, things are no better.
‘Come on,’ she says, trying to sound sure of herself. ‘Please, Aurek? Let go now. We can’t do this all the time.’
‘Nie.’
‘Please?’
The teacher comes out into the playground ringing the school bell, heaving it up and down in a two-handed grip as children flow past her.
‘Good morning,’ she says, putting the bell down and clenching her fists, like a farmer approaching a difficult calf, arms already tensed for a fight. ‘Still don’t want to come to lessons, young man?’
Week after week, the other mothers act as if they have not noticed Aurek and his high-pitched screaming or the spectacle of Silvana and the teacher trying to hold on to the furious child. Silvana alternates between wanting to cry and wanting to take an angry bow in front of her audience. She and the boy might as well be starring