22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [65]
‘You’re drunk.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘It’s best you don’t know.’
‘Please?’
‘You don’t really need to know.’
‘I do. I want to see you again. After the war.’
The girl shook her head.
‘My name is Roza.’
‘Roza. When the war is over, I’ll come back.’
She kissed him gently on the lips. ‘You think you’re the only one who has told me this? It’s what every soldier says. Romantic fools every one of you. Go. Don’t forget to wave at me from the train. Make it look good.’
Janusz got on the train and tried to wave at her but the snow was falling too thickly and he couldn’t see her. He studied his hands in his lap and felt foolish for letting his emotions rise up as they had done. He wondered if Bruno had seen him, pushing his way into the girl’s clothes. He thought of Silvana and knew that he would never have felt this way about another girl if he could have stayed close to her. It was loneliness driving him mad.
At some point, the police must have boarded the train. Afterwards, when Bruno told the story of their escape, there were always police, but Janusz could never remember them. He’d been told to keep his head down and not make eye contact with anyone.
Memories of home carried him forwards as the train rattled and lurched: his mother playing the piano; his father coming home from work, talking of politics and local government. He remembered the apple orchards behind Silvana’s parents’ house where he had waited for her when they were courting. He thought again of the old woman and the mistake he had made, thinking her just a girl. The blood on her feet. Her white hair. He thought of Franek and wanted to say how it felt to see the boy lying helpless on the ice. But there was no one to confess to. He leaned against the window and watched the day turn into night. When the train stopped early the next morning, Bruno walked past and Janusz got up and followed him.
Strangers met them on the platform. They were passed among these people. They crossed a frozen river in silence and took another train. Janusz realized Roza had been right. It had been foolish to suggest he would ever see her again. And Silvana and his son? Bruno told him to forget them. He would probably never see them again either.
Ipswich
In September, Aurek starts back at school. Now he has Peter to accompany him into his classroom he doesn’t make a fuss, and Silvana experiences a sense of dismay as he lets go of her hand and walks away. It’s a strange feeling, no longer being governed by the need to stay together. The boy doesn’t need her like he used to. It hurts to see him walk away so easily.
Peter, who, Silvana learns from Tony, stays with his grandparents during the week, joins Silvana and Aurek in the park on their way to school every morning. His grandmother walks him to the edge of the park. She is a thin, grey-haired woman in a tweed skirt and high-necked blouse. Narrow as a knife blade, sideways on she almost disappears. When she takes the boy in her arms, though, her thin face glows. She swells, becoming solid, warm and startling, her needs as obvious as a baby’s. The old woman kisses Peter’s plump cheeks fiercely, as if she is afraid she might never see him again.
Silvana knows that the old lady’s hands contain the fear of loss in them. She has lost a daughter. No wonder she clings to the boy. And no wonder Peter shrinks from her touch. He must feel the weight of his mother’s death every time his grandmother’s bony hands fold around his face.
Silvana would like to talk to her, tell her she understands, but the old woman always ignores her. She turns her head and