22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [5]
Janusz focuses on the headscarf until he is near enough to see the embroidered birds with flowing wings sweeping over her forehead and tucking themselves under her chin. She looks thinner, older, her cheekbones more prominent than he remembers. As she recognizes him she gives a small cry.
A skinny, dark-haired child leaps into her arms. Is that Aurek? Is that him? The last time Janusz saw him he was just a baby, a plump toddler with baby curls. Not even old enough for his first haircut. He tries to see the boy’s face, to find some familiarity in his features, but the child clambers up Silvana like a monkey, pulling her headscarf off, his arms locking around her neck, burying his head in her chest.
Janusz stops still in front of them and for a moment his courage fails him. What if he has made a foolish mistake and these two are somebody else’s family? If all he has really recognized is the forlorn look the woman carries in her eyes and his own lonely desires?
‘Silvana?’
She is fighting the child, trying to pull her headscarf back on. ‘Janusz? I saw you in the crowd. I saw you looking for us …’
‘Your hair?’ he says, all thought of rehearsed lines gone from his mind.
Silvana touches her head and the scarf falls around her shoulders. She looks away from him.
‘I’m sorry.’ He doesn’t know whether it is the sight of her that fills him with apologies or the idea that he has already made her uncomfortable in his presence. ‘Really. I didn’t mean … How are you?’
Silvana pulls her scarf back onto her head and knots it under her chin. ‘The soldiers cut it.’
It’s hard to hear her clearly with the racket and grind of trains arriving and departing and guards calling across the platforms. He takes a tentative step closer.
‘We were living in the woods,’ she says. ‘Did they tell you? The soldiers found us and told us the war was over. They cut our hair off when they found us. They do it to stop the lice. It’s growing back slowly.’
‘Oh. It doesn’t matter. I … I understand,’ says Janusz, although he doesn’t. The child clutches something wooden in his hand. It looks vaguely familiar. Janusz frowns.
‘Is that the rattle your father made?’
Silvana opens her mouth to speak and then closes it again. He notices her cheeks colour slightly in a blush that disappears as quickly as it comes. But of course it is the rattle. She doesn’t need to say a word. The dark wood, the handmade look to it: it has to be. He smiles with relief, suddenly reassured. Of course this is his family.
‘You kept it all this time? Can I see it?’
He reaches out, but the boy pulls it to his chest and makes a grumbling sound.
‘He’s tired,’ says Silvana. ‘The journey has tired him.’
It’s a shock to see a child so thin. His son’s face has a transparency to it, and the way his skin is tight, revealing the cradling structure of bones beneath – it makes Janusz’s heart ache like a soft bruise.
‘Aurek? Small, isn’t he? Hello, little fellow. Don’t be frightened. I am your … I am your father.’
‘Your moustache,’ says Silvana, pulling the boy onto her other hip. ‘It’s different. It makes you look different.’
‘My moustache? I’ve had it for years. I’d forgotten.’
‘Six years,’ she says.
He nods his head. ‘And my family? Do you have news of them? Eve? Do you know where she is?’
Silvana’s eyes darken. Her pupils widen and shine, and he’s sure she is going to tell him Eve is dead. That they have all died. He holds his breath.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know where any of them are.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘I never saw them again after you left us.’
He’s been waiting for news of his family for years. He’d thought Silvana might arrive with letters from them, stories about them. Some information on their whereabouts. They stand in silence until Janusz speaks again.
‘Well, you’re here now.’
Silvana answers in a whisper and he has to lean in towards her to hear what she is saying.
‘I can hardly believe it. I can hardly believe we’re here.’
Janusz laughs to stop himself from crying. He presses her hand into his,