Adela leaned over, her elbows on her knees, and let out a long, low wail of pain. It was then that Joyce noticed with a lurch of dismay the patch of wet seeping over her trousers.
‘My waters have broken,’ Adela cried. And then she let out a howl.
20
Dorotha
Occupied Poland, January 1945
The January storm pummelled the ghetto doors and windows, screaming and rattling them like a malevolent spirit. Dorotha and Gabriele huddled together in bed, drawing on what little warmth their skeletal bodies could provide.
Dorotha was frozen. It had been three hours since Nathan’s insistence that they were waiting for their own execution and that they must go into hiding, and yet, she still hadn’t made a decision. She listened to the storm’s fury. Every dustbin lid crashing along the cobbles was a German bullet, every bang and thump a Nazi fist come to batter down the door. She listened. Waited. And then she heard it. Adela, calling – no,howling– at her to run. Run as fast as her legs could carry her and cross the bridge to safety.
Dorotha pulled back the covers and a blast of freezing air roused Gabriele from her sleep. She murmured and called out, ‘Mama.’
Dorotha’s heart was thundering. She sniffed. In the distance she could smell burning.
Enough procrastination. If they were going to do this, it had to be now, under cover of darkness. As soon as dawn broke, it would already be too late.
‘Gabriele, wake up. Come on,bubbeleh. We have to leave.’
While the little girl yawned and stretched, Dorotha ran round the room, frantically throwing clothes into the carpet bag she had arrived with all those years ago.
‘Put on as many clothes as you can find,’ she ordered.
‘I’m scared to go outside,’ Gabriele whimpered. Dorotha cursed herself at her crassness. Of course. She had spent the past months drumming the fear of God into Gabriele at leaving the room.
‘It’s all right, little one. We are going to a very special little library to hide until help arrives. You’ll be safe there, I promise.’ Dorotha hated the lie but what else could she do?
‘It’s just a short walk to the library, then we can have something to eat.’
Gabriele looked unconvinced.
‘You’ve always wanted to sleep in a library, haven’t you?’ she coaxed.
Wordlessly, Gabriele began to dress, and Dorotha paused, trying to calm her hammering heart. She pressed a blanket, more socks, the rest of their food rations and a flask of water into the bag, and finally,The Secret Garden. She could hear Ruth’s dry voice in her ear.Only you would take books into a library.But it was more than a book. It was her last connection to Adela.
Gabriele stood in all her clothes and an odd assortment of rags, shivering so hard her teeth chattered. Her hair was nothing but downy fluff. She would freeze like a duckling outside. Dorotha took the few bits of straw she had been saving as fuel and stuffed it inside her clogs, and then wrapped a shawl around her head. Then she cast a last look at the hovel they’d called home for nearly five years, and struck out into the unknown.
Outside on the frozen street, the snow lay piled in heaps. The air was so cold it seemed to freeze in their lungs. The distant thud and crump of shells and rockets broke apart the night sky. Every so often, the horizon would light up with a livid flash.
‘Come on, sweetie,’ she said, throwing her arm around Gabriele. ‘We must hurry.’
They reached the footbridge and stopped.
Cholerne pieklo!Dorotha cursed under her breath. It might as well be a mountain.
Ice and snow were heaped on every step. It was perilous. One slip and she felt like every bone in her body might shatter like glass.
‘Come on,’ Gabriele said. ‘It’ll be easier if we support each other.’
The pair leaned on each other as slowly they tackled each step up. By the time they reached the top, Dorotha’s lungs were screaming, but they had made it. From their vantage point they could see across the ghetto. In Baluty Square, there was a bonfire. Germans were tossing files into it. The flames leapt upwards. To her alarm, she realised the first light of dawn was creeping across the eastern sky.
‘We must hurry,’ she breathed, gripping Gabriele’s hand tighter.
At the edge of the square, they crouched under a tree. The expression on the guard’s faces, one of grim resignation, told her everything she needed to know. They were burning all evidence before the Soviets arrived. Every so often, a German would retreat into the administration headquarters and emerge with more boxes.
A cold eastern wind howled across the square, rattling the old windows of the government buildings. Above them, a giant black crow was stripping bark from the tree.
