Page 14 of The Storyteller of Krakow

It was a Tuesday when we were finally set free. I remember the day. Not the date. Tuesdays had up until then for me been boring; nothing happened, but this Tuesday, we were set free.

I thought to myself at the time, I would always think of Tuesdays in a more favourable sense from then on. Always think of them as tasting of freedom, and where I could in my life, I would try to liberate myself each second day of the week.

We were told two things as the sun beat down on us. We could try to go home, to a home that wasn’t really ours any more and risk what could happen to us. Or we could leave Russia and Poland, go farther, and join the Polish forces in exile amassing in Uzbekistan, then move on to Syria and Iraq.

‘Listen carefully,’ the guard said, dragging on a cigarette. ‘You are released. You are no longer prisoners.’ He said it as if he expected applause.

A hollow-cheeked man, wrapped in rags that used to be a coat, found his voice first. ‘So we go home?’ he asked.

The officer’s mouth twitched. ‘Poland? You can try. The Germans are there now. Nazis. Your country is under their boot. If you go back, you take your chances. No one will stop you. No one will protect you.’

He flicked ash to the ground and tapped the clipboard with one finger. ‘Or you go south. Uzbekistan. There are Poles gathering there, making their own army – an army in exile. You join them, you work, you fight. Nurses, drivers, clerks, soldiers. Anyone with hands and a brain.’

He made a vague sweep of his hand. ‘From there, you go farther still. Iran. Iraq. Syria. Egypt. Join your countrymen who are with the British troops. They train you. Give you uniforms and British rations.’ The word rations turned every head.

Iran. Iraq. Syria. Egypt. I had seen some of those names in schoolbooks, printed neatly beside deserts and rivers, but they meant nothing to me beyond a place on a map. I could not imagine what the air smelled like there, or what colour the nights were, or whether you could sleep without listening for boots outside the door.

Around me people began to murmur, some saying home like it was a prayer, others saying south like it was salvation. A woman clutched her child tighter. A man laughed and said, ‘At least in Uzbekistan we’ll die in the sun. It can’t be colder in winter than here?’

I wanted to ask him what would happen to us if we went back. I wanted him to say the Germans would be reasonable, that they would understand we were only trying to survive. But the officer just stared at us as if we were slow children.

‘Decide,’ he said at last. ‘If you go home, go now. If you go to Uzbekistan, your names go on the list. There will be trains going south. You wait for them, you board, and you do not make trouble. Understand?’

I stood there, side by side with others who were but skin and bone, and despite the warmth from the June sun, we wrapped our arms around ourselves, clinging on to the ratty clothing that had so far kept us alive. I wished my parents were there to guide me, to tell me what the right decision would be. Option one, go home, or at least try to and see what would happen with Germany taking over the country. Or option two, go somewhere you have never been, with people you barely know, and hope to God that this is all the truth – that we could, perhaps, join our brothers and sisters in arms.

I was almost old enough to join up, but I was not strong enough, and I knew that. I listened to the others as they discussed their options. We could be loaded onto the train, in the cattle trucks again and taken south, or we could make our own way there, or make our own way back home.

I did not want to go on that train again and was not sure I would still be alive when it reached Uzbekistan, but then again, I knew, too, that walking for me was not an option either.

I remember standing there while Russian guards smoked and waited for us to make our decision, staring at my feet in Father’s old boots that I had taken from his corpse and stuffed with straw to make them fit.

‘You all right there?’ A voice made me look up.

It was a man, his face so drawn that his cheekbones jutted from under the skin.

‘Janek,’ he said and proffered his hand.

I shook it gently, aware that his fingers were so thin, so slight, I was afraid one of them would break. I remembered seeing him about, at least I think I did – all the men looked the same with their gaunt faces, their eyes hollow.

‘You smoke?’ he asked as he lit a cigarette. ‘Our guards, or rather allies, now decided to give me one. Ironic, no?’ He smiled and winked at me. ‘One minute they want us dead, hate us, now they want us to fight and give us a cigarette to cheer us up.’

‘I don’t smoke,’ I interrupted his rambling.

He nodded. ‘Too young. How old are you?’

‘Eighteen,’ I said, even though it was a lie. I was still a few months away from it.

‘What you going to do? Me, I’m going to Uzbekistan, no point going back. On the train, though. Wouldn’t make it walking, you know?’ He looked down at his spindly legs. ‘Lost two toes to frostbite; you lose anything?’

It had been such a long time since I had really spoken to anyone that I felt overwhelmed by his questions, by his closeness and rambling way of talking. Yet, I was glad that maybe he might tell me what to do. Maybe he could help.

‘I don’t want to go back on the train again,’ I said.

He blew out a plume of smoke. ‘Me neither, but no other option. I’m not staying here!’ He laughed, and it made me smile a little. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he continued. ‘You got anyone with you? No family?’

I shook my head.

‘Me neither. Say, you stick with me. I’ll see you get there in one piece.’