22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [45]
‘Ah, a clever peasant,’ she said. ‘And where is he now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Silvana said. She tried not to think of Janusz and focused instead on the warm cup in her hand, the steam rising from it. ‘And what about you?’ she asked Hanka.
‘Szlachta,’ Hanka said, tossing her head back. Nobility. And the subject was closed.
The barn Silvana lived in with Hanka, the daughter of nobility, was a small thatched building made of wood and plaster. The farmer and his wife kept rabbits in it for meat. There were rats that came around the cages at night, but by making beds on stilts, the women managed to keep them away from them.
They cared for the farm animals and were fed and given shelter. Sometimes, when it was very cold, Hanka demanded that the farmer let Silvana and Aurek sleep in the house with them. Silvana didn’t want to. She knew the farmer’s wife didn’t like her, and she feared the farmer might like her too much.
The farm was isolated, miles from any villages, but still, every time the farmer’s wife spoke to her, it was about German troops and how she wouldn’t hide the two women if they arrived at the house. Silvana felt it was only a matter of time before they were found. The farmer’s wife told them women from the next village had been sent to work on German farms. Their children had been taken from them.
Hanka said it was all talk and nothing more than that. ‘Listen, that woman needs us. We do as much work as both of them on the farm. She won’t hand us over to any soldiers.’
‘It’s the way she looks at me,’ said Silvana. ‘Like she hates me.’
‘Well, of course she does. You’re younger and prettier than she is. Look, stay in the barn if you want. But if you do, you’d better stop moaning in your sleep. I am not going to be woken up by your bad dreams every night.’
Silvana blushed hotly and the other woman put her hand out and touched her cheek. ‘It’s all right, moja droga. Don’t listen to me, my dear. I don’t mean to be harsh. We all have nightmares. This war is the worst one of all. Tell me, what is it that makes you cry?’
Silvana stroked Aurek’s head and tried to stop the tears pricking at her eyes.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I think I miss my husband, that’s all.’
Janusz
Flat river plains and wide fields stretched ahead of them. It seemed to Janusz, in those early weeks of their journey, that the air itself was filled with unease and danger. The weather turned vicious, gales blew and raged, uprooting trees, shutting down the landscape in folds of grey rain so that Janusz could often only see a few feet in front of him. Snowstorms came, the cold gnawed into him and whiteness burned his eyes. And every step took him further away from Silvana and his son.
They passed towns filled with Polish army units, groups of men giving up their weapons to the Russian units that came from the east. They saw the Red Army soldiers marching, singing their beloved national songs. So many tired-looking men and thin horses. Bruno always led them away from the crowds even as Janusz felt they should step forwards and join up with the other soldiers. In villages and towns, the snow-banked roads were clogged with men, horse-driven wagons, artillery pieces and dismal field kitchens.
Janusz longed for Warsaw. He wanted tall buildings and wide urban streets, pavements beneath his feet, the sound of the trams, the theatres and glass-fronted shops. The things he hated before, he now missed: the gangs of dippers, the thieves, the Jewish street hawkers, the koniks and cab drivers. He missed the colours of the gypsies with their violin-playing and their red trousers and rainbow scarves, selling their wares off the Royal Way, looking like they belonged to the last century.
But most of all he missed Silvana. The touch of her, the hard frown she wore like armour against the world, her arms tight around him at night, the sound of his son’s breath as he slept in the cot beside them. Instead he was stuck on this journey, and he followed Bruno and Franek silently, like a dog follows a cart, hypnotized by the metallic clink of