Page 17 of The Storyteller of Krakow

7

1941, KITAB, UZBEKISTAN

Janek and I had managed to survive the six weeks in that cattle car, when so many others didn’t. Lack of food, hygiene and sickness saw bodies once more left by the side of the tracks. I felt as though I were living the hell of going to the gulag all over again and, I hated to admit it, it was Janek with his endless chivvying that kept me going. That and my father’s voice in my head that I had not heard again since he told me to be brave, but I focused daily on trying to hear him again, repeating his words over and over in my head.

It was the heat when I arrived that I remembered. Someone had said it was August, and it sounds odd, but I had completely lost a sense of time. Days, weeks, months; nothing had really mattered.

The heat here though, while welcome, swallowed me whole. The air was unmoving and carried the taste of dust. After the memory of the gulag’s cold, I let it wash over me, but then found it just to be another cruel joke – it was too hot.

The camp was simply rows and rows of tents, set up beyond a whitewashed building where officers gave us food and clothing. I had hoped, or perhaps dreamt, of a house, as stupid as that sounds, and this understanding that these would be my new home made me question my decision, and whether, in fact, I should have chanced going back to Poland, but I knew nothing of the world any more – nothing of what was going on in my own country even. In the gulag we had known only hunger and death.

A few larger structures stood beyond the tents, long, rectangular buildings made of mud brick, their walls the same colour as the brown earth. They had narrow windows without glass, just wooden shutters. One looked like a warehouse. Another, a barn where Polish women sat outside, fanning themselves.

In the distance, the foothills rose in layers. Dry, brown slopes climbing towards the pale ridges of the Zerafshan Mountains. They were beautiful, yes, but empty. No forests. No deep green. Just scrub and rock and heat shimmering in the air.

It was emptiness again. There was space. Too much of it. The enormous sky arched above us. There was nowhere to hide from it, just like in the gulag. It was thought we were constantly being sent to the ends of the earth, with no real promise of ever seeing normal life again.

I shuffled forward, clutching my bundle of clothing I had been given, when a woman stepped forward.

I looked at her, this woman, whose face was rounder than most, whose clothes did not sag from her body like mine.

‘You’re in the barn, with us,’ she said, leading me away from the others.

I saw Janek, who was lining up with two other men to go inside a tent, and he turned and gave me a wide grin.

‘You’ve got some boyfriend there,’ she said.

‘What? Who? I don’t have a boyfriend.’

‘That man.’ She gave a quick wave at Janek. ‘He thinks it’s better for you to be in the barn. I mean, it is better than the tents, that’s true. But it’s already full. I was one of the first to get here and got in the barn before these tents were even erected. Like I said, you’ve got some friend, at least, there.’

She showed me inside the barn where rows of makeshift wooden bunks were set up.

‘You’re here,’ she said and showed me a low bunk. ‘Lucky, really. The girl who had it died last week from malaria. There was some talk of who might get it, and we were waiting for the powers that be to give us someone new, but your man – sorry, friend – must’ve given a sergeant something to let a newcomer have it.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, lowering myself onto the thin mattress, already feeling the scratch of straw it was stuffed with.

‘Don’t thank me,’ she said. ‘Anyway. You won’t like it in here at the moment. Too hot in the day. Nights get much cooler. Good to be in here though, when winter hits. It’s not so great out there.’

‘What do I do now?’ I asked, placing my clothes down next to me.

‘Now? Now you wait. That’s what this place is. A waiting game.’

‘Waiting for what?’ I asked.

She shrugged, as if it were obvious. ‘For transport. For papers. For the officers to stop arguing and decide what they’re doing with us. They say we’ll move again and get to Iraq and finally train with the British, but they never say when. So for now, we’re here.’

She tipped her head towards the barn door, where the noise of the camp drifted in, voices, laughter, the scrape of boots in dust. ‘You’re free now. In the Anders’ Army. You’re free and a part of Poland again – albeit in exile. You shouldn’t look so glum! No one’s marching you out to strip bark. No one’s watching you. You can do as you like, as long as you show up for rations and don’t make trouble. Make friends, talk. Me, I play cards, always have. I like to gamble, you?’

‘Not so much.’

‘Well, you’ll find something to do. Find your people. Everyone is pretty chatty here. Some of the men, when they gain back their weight, are quite handsome. Great to have a flirt with now and then. You’ll find your way,’ she said, then walked away.

Find my way? How?

I looked out at the women who were sitting talking and realised I could do something to occupy my time. In the gulag, I had made stories up for myself, but here, in Uzbekistan, I could collect them.

I began the way I always do when I don’t know how to be with people: slowly, and by pretending I was only passing through. I drifted to the edge of their circles and listened. I offered to fetch water when a woman’s ankles were swollen. I traded a piece of bread for a needle and mended a ripped hem. I nodded at the right moments, laughed when they laughed, and asked small questions that didn’t cost anyone too much.