22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [70]
‘It’s cheap and it’s good,’ said Bruno. ‘Look over there.’ He nodded towards the waitress. ‘She’s pretty.’ Bruno pushed back his chair and got up from the table. ‘I don’t know what you are going to do tomorrow, but I think I’ll be busy.’
‘With her?’
‘Why not?’
Janusz turned his head away. ‘Do what you want.’ He didn’t think the girl would be interested in any case. Bruno barely spoke a word of French.
The next day, Bruno was still with the waitress and Janusz set off on his own. He found a beach and walked for miles until the sand gave way to rocks and boulders. Seagulls squealed as Janusz found their nests and took their eggs, large blue-white ovals. The birds wheeled and dived at him until he was forced to run, his hands above his head in surrender.
He walked in the tide, trouser legs rolled up, shirt tied around his waist. A heat haze rising off the waves made him dizzy and his head began to throb. Sitting down by some rocks, he made a pillow out of his shirt and closed his eyes.
When he woke the sun had shifted around and he was in the full heat of its rays. Dizzy and thirsty, he wandered back to his rooms, where he drank a jugful of water and poured another over his head and neck. He lay down, soaking wet, cocooned himself in a sheet and thought of Silvana. He staggered up and hunted around until he found a pen and a scrap of paper by the side of Bruno’s bed. But he couldn’t think what to write. What could he say? I am in France in the sun and I hope you are safe with my parents? He dared not even think of her in Poland. He felt dumb and thick-headed. He put the pen and paper down and collapsed on his bunk.
That night he dreamed in his airless room that his tightening, burnt body had split open like a chrysalis. That another man, another Janusz, emerged from his skin and stepped slowly out into the airless night, eased from his shell by the sweat that poured off him. That this other man stood in the moonlight and loped through the streets until he came to the sea.
The Mediterranean, so clear and fresh by day, had turned silky black, and he paused for a moment at the water’s edge before wading out into it, letting the waves lick his raw new body. He was somebody else. He had been reborn from the air into water. A birth in reverse.
He woke with a terrible thirst. He tried to move, but the pain across his back stopped him.
He heard Bruno’s whispering voice, ‘Jan? Are you getting up today? Listen, there’s a camp in the hills above the city. I met some men last night. The Germans are making their way south. They should be here in a matter of months, maybe weeks. The men I met say we can join a military unit and get a boat to England. We need to move on. What do you think? Jesus, look at you.’
He held up the sheet.
‘God, man, you look terrible. Can you hear me? Look at you, covered in blisters. Jesus help you, you’re sunburnt all over.’
Bruno opened the windows, coughing. ‘You need air in here.’
Janusz opened his eyes. The wallpaper swirled. He tried to speak, but his lips cracked and he tasted blood again.
‘He cannot stay here.’
The landlady stood in the doorway, black and grey hair piled high on her head, coral-pink lipstick and spidery black eyelashes.
‘Stupid boy. You are too fair for the sun. Look at you. You’re dried out like a piece of salt cod.’
Janusz heard Bruno pleading in a broken mix of French and Polish. He forced his dry lips to whisper: ‘I am sorry, Madame. I’ll leave. It’s not safe for you to have me here.’ Levering himself off the bed on an elbow, he gestured to Bruno. ‘Hand me my clothes.’
‘No, no, no.’ The woman sighed. ‘You speak French; that makes it easier. I’ll find somewhere for you to go. I have a friend with a farm. You can rest there.’
She stared at his naked body. ‘When you’re better you can work for them. You’re stocky enough. You look like a peasant.’
A day later, Janusz set out, clothes sticky and uncomfortable, body stiff and painful. As the cart carried him higher into the hills beyond Marseilles the air became sweeter. The