Page 12 of The Storyteller of Krakow

He gave no acknowledgement that he had heard me.

So it was that, on the coming Sunday, Father and I followed the directions from one of the other prisoners, Michal, who told us where one of these forest farmers lived.

‘It’s a fair way and better to go in summer,’ he said, looking at the still thickly snow-coated ground.

‘We need to go,’ I said.

‘Up to you. Don’t get lost in the dark, though. Others have. Never seen them again.’

‘Would it matter where we die?’ my father asked.

‘Surely better to die slightly warm, slightly fed, than freeze to death?’ Michal said.

‘Wouldn’t matter to me.’ My father took the directions off him and walked away.

‘Say.’ Michal grabbed my arm as I started to follow. ‘You be careful with him, eh? He doesn’t seem all that right upstairs if you know what I mean.’ He then tapped the side of his temple.

‘He’s my father,’ I said.

‘Still. Be careful.’

As Father and I walked, I would pull out a few treasures that we were going to barter. Father’s pocket watch, Mama’s gold wedding ring, my silver bracelet that was so thin and light I suspected it wasn’t silver at all.

‘Will I talk to them?’ I asked Father.

‘Who?’

‘The farm people.’

‘What do they farm, out here?’ he asked.

‘Potatoes, mostly, I’m told.’

‘They must be mad,’ he said.

‘So, I will talk to them then?’ I asked again.

‘Talk to who?’ He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

‘Tata.’ I stopped walking and held on to his arm to make him stop too.

He shook my hand away. ‘We have to keep going if we are to get all our work done before your mama arrives home,’ he said, marching on, his breath coming out in whisps as he rambled about Mama, Piotr; his patients, even.

I thought I had been bad enough, retreating into my own head, but Father had somehow gone completely into his own world, or rather, into the past. I could understand it. The present made no sense at all, and the past was where he found comfort. It did not mean, though, that this realisation of how bad he had become did not hurt me greatly. It made me want to cry, to grab hold of him, to tell him to return to me, because I was still here, the others gone. I still needed him, and I needed him to think I was enough to keep fighting for. But losing Mama, his wife, his friend, and the woman he went to work with each day had broken him, and I had to accept that he would leave me too soon. I was not enough for him, and I had to be okay with that.

We arrived at the house just as the wind began its banshee howl. It sat among the dense pines. The only sign that anyone lived there was the thin stream of smoke coming from its chimney. Boards were splintered, windows broken, and a dirty, old cart sat outside, its wheels caked in mud.

Before I could stop him, Father rapped on the door.

‘Open up. It’s just the doctor,’ he said.

‘Tata!’ I pulled him back just as the door creaked open, revealing a man with a heavy-set white beard and long, greying hair.

He spoke to us, but of course, neither of us knew what he said, so I quickly delved into my pockets and showed him our treasures.

He eyed them, then us.

‘Eat?’ I said, and mimed putting something into my mouth.