22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [72]
‘Where the hell am I going to find birch trees?’
‘I tell you, I need birch bark. Brzoza. There’s a copse of birches in Christchurch Park. I’ve seen them. If you won’t go, I’ll do it.’
Silvana knows she sounds like a mad woman. Maybe that is what her time in the forest has done to her. The war has turned her into a Baba Jaga, an old witch of the forests. And it is her fault the child is ill. Worse, she does not know what to do. She looks at Janusz and waits to hear what he has to say. He’s the English one here.
Aurek wraps his arms round his knees and coughs. His ribs shine under the water and he coughs again, sending a spasm through his shoulders.
‘I can’t go into the park at ten o’clock at night,’ Janusz says. ‘For God’s sake. That’s enough of this. Get Aurek into his pyjamas and wrap him up in bed. I’ll go for the doctor.’
‘A doctor?’
‘That’s what he needs. Get him out of the bath. His lips are turning blue.’
She turns her eyes on the child and nods. ‘Yes. You’re right. A doctor. A doctor will know what to do.’
She lifts Aurek, water dripping down the front of her dress, and the child, still burning hot to the touch, faints in her arms. Memories rush towards her, panic rising in her chest. The mud underfoot. The fur coat covered in blood. She is a terrible mother, cursed just like her own mother.
‘Janusz, hurry!’ she screams, but he has already gone. She holds her son tight in her arms and sobs into his neck.
It is raining hard; icy rain that is turning to sleet. Janusz nearly tumbles off his bike, freewheeling down the hill, skidding through freezing puddles. He pumps the pedals, bent over the handlebars, wanting to get to the doctor’s house as fast as he can. Silvana’s fear has taken him over. He no longer thinks the boy just has a bad cold. Now other diseases crowd his thoughts. Polio. Tuberculosis. Pneumonia.
The sleet stings his face and he turns off the main street, hurtling up a gravel driveway. Nothing is more important than the boy. Pedalling like a fury, energy surging through him, he can feel a tight knot of love for his strange son, lodged in his heart, snug as a bar of metal in a lathe. The relief he feels when he sees a light still on in the doctor’s front rooms is so great he throws his bike to the ground and takes the steps onto the porch two at a time, banging on the door with his fists so that the doctor’s wife opens the door angrily, scolding him for scaring her half to death.
The bedroom is cold. It is the first thing Janusz notices when he shows the doctor into Aurek’s room. He doesn’t bother to take the man’s coat. The way he has left it buttoned up suggests he doesn’t want to part with it.
‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ says the doctor, rubbing his hands together briskly. ‘He’s going to be all right.’
Janusz realizes he has been holding his breath. He sighs with relief. Silvana has tidied the room in the time he was absent: Aurek’s books are lined up; the picture of puppies in a wicker basket hangs straight; the rug looks like she might have swept it. She has forgotten her wet dress, and it clings to her. Janusz finds himself studying the line of her suspender belt, which shows clearly against the soaked fabric. It’s been so long since he last touched her. He turns to face the doctor, hoping he has not seen him staring.
‘It’s chickenpox,’ says the doctor. ‘It’s going round. Half the youngsters at the school are off with it. The fever will be gone by tomorrow morning. Then the spots will come.’
‘Chickenpox?’
‘My own son had it two weeks ago.’
Janusz relaxes. Aurek has something other children have. Something normal and curable.
‘Your son?’
‘A bit late really. My boy’s twelve, and I do think it’s better to get these illnesses done with earlier rather than later.’
‘So Aurek is a good age for chickenpox? He’s the right age for it? It’s a normal thing to have at his age?’
‘Well, yes, you could say that. If his temperature is still up tomorrow,