22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [88]
‘Such gentlemen to take our country,’ Silvana replied.
‘Let them take it,’ Marysia said. ‘They’re welcome to it. Before they came we were hungry. Now I have food whenever I want. And look –’ She lifted her skirts and turned an ankle, showing off a pair of laced brown boots with a small heel. ‘These come from Paris. I’d let you try them, but I don’t think you’d get them on.’
Silvana looked down at her swollen feet. Her toes were scarlet, her feet covered in a red rash that marbled up her legs, stopping just below the knees.
Marysia tutted. ‘You’ll have scars. What were you doing in the woods anyway? Were you hiding? Are you Jewish? The boy looks Jewish.’
‘My son is Polish. So am I.’
‘I don’t care either way,’ Marysia said. ‘My father thinks you and the boy are a couple of miracles. He’ll let you stay here as long as you like. I’ll let you stay as long as you pull your weight.’
Silvana stood up stiffly. It seemed as though she had lived many lives, that the day Janusz left her in Warsaw was the day one life ended and another began. And now here she was, starting again. A miracle no less. But she was nothing of the sort. She and the boy were foundlings from the forest, mysteries even to herself. In the kitchen, Aurek was sitting on Antek’s lap, wrapped in oilcloths. Antek was teaching him a song. ‘Oto dziś dzień krwi i chwały’, ‘Today is a day of blood and glory’.
The old woman sat watching in a chair by the fire.
‘Ah, there you are,’ Antek said. ‘Come and sit down.’ He handed Aurek to Silvana.
‘I was just saying how I thought you were nothing but a pile of old clothes when I found you. That’s all I thought you were: a heap of blankets. I found the chaise a few days before. Thought it might be useful. There’s lots of stuff in the woods now. People trying to get to the Russian side. They carry their furniture and belongings as far as they can, then abandon them. See that clock?’ A wide-hipped grandfather clock stood against the whitewashed wall. It had a hand missing and the front was made of a different-coloured wood from the body. ‘Mended it myself. I reckon it came from the same house the chaise longue came from. And then I saw you and I thought you were a pile of clothes.’
‘Do you think you could show me the chaise longue again, when the weather improves?’ Silvana asked. ‘I had a bag with me. I’d like to go back and try to find it. And a necklace. A glass pendant. It’s probably lost, but my husband gave it to me.’
‘I didn’t see a bag and I never saw a necklace. There was nothing but you and that broken seat.’
‘The things that come out of the forest,’ said his wife in a hushed voice. ‘You hear such stories.’
‘The drowned woman,’ said Marysia. ‘Tell us about the drowned woman.’
‘That’s a stupid story,’ grumbled Antek.
‘Go on, Mama, tell the story. I’m sure our guest wants to hear it.’
‘All right,’ said Ela. ‘She was a drinker, this woman. She had a son but that didn’t stop her. Her husband chucked her out. Kept the baby and threw her out in the street.’
‘She slept with different men,’ said Marysia. ‘Nobody knew who the father of her baby really was.’ She stared at Silvana. ‘Do you like a drink?’
‘Marysia!’ snapped her mother. ‘Are you telling the story or am I?’ She shifted in her seat and continued. ‘The woman went straight to the Jewish tavern in the village. When the bar closed, she wandered around in the dark and stumbled into the forest, where she fell into a deep pond. They found her there the next day, drowned. The child screamed and cried, and nothing would silence it.’
‘So what happened?’ Silvana asked.
Ela sat back in her chair. ‘She came back from the dead. Three days later she came back to suckle her son. The sound of him crying brought that wretched woman back. After that, she never left her cottage, never spoke a word, spun wool every night, prepared the meals and raised her boy. Her husband said he liked her better dead than alive.’
‘And it really happened,’ said Marysia.
‘Of course it didn’t,’ said the woodsman. ‘It’s a stupid tale you