Page 42 of The Storyteller of Krakow

I threw myself into the routine – needing it now more than ever. It kept my mind away from Janek and Zosia and allowed time to move on away from that awful day.

I checked the oil in the battered lorry, tightening bolts and making sure my cargo was secured. I drove and delivered the cargo to the other camps, sometimes letters from home, sometimes supplies – food, uniforms – nothing ever exciting, I ate, I slept, and then I repeated it day in and day out.

Sometimes, as I waited in the cab for orders, I’d listen to the tiny, crackling radio that the mechanics had rigged up on a shelf in the depot. The news was always grim: advances, the bombs dropping, the uncertainty of tomorrow.

I strained to catch snatches of home; names of cities, places I’d once known, now reduced to static and hurried voices. It was as though the whole world was moving on, shifting, while I stayed stuck, circling through the same monotony, allowing time to pass, but nothing really changed.

One night, my thoughts would not settle, and I tossed and turned in my bed, trying not to think about Zosia, to not relive what Janek had attempted to do.

‘Can’t you sleep?’ Anka asked from the bed beside me.

She was the only one whose name I knew, as everyone spoke about her and to her. She was one of those women who was not only beautiful, but had an aura about her, making so many of the women want to be close to her in case some of it rubbed off on them.

‘No,’ I replied.

I heard a rustle, then the weight of her sitting on my bed next to me.

I shuffled to half-sit up.

‘Take this,’ she whispered, handing me a small sachet of powder.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s sort of a sleeping draught, but it’s more than that – like it makes you dream vivid dreams and you can see people you have lost and they talk to you.’

Even in the gloom, I could see that her eyes were bright and the whiteness of her teeth.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘Try it. It’s good. I saw my mama again.’

‘I don’t want to see anyone.’

She sighed. ‘You are a strange one, Lena. You don’t talk to anyone, but we’re all like you, you know. We’ve lost people, too. We’re just trying to get through this the best we can. Why won’t you talk to us, laugh with us? We’re each other’s family now.’

‘There’s not much to laugh about. And I don’t need a new family.’

‘You know what you need, Lena?’ She shuffled closer to me so I could smell the freshness of soap on her skin. ‘You need to go and see Noor.’

‘Noor?’

‘She’s a mystic. We’ve all been. That’s where I got the powder. She’s magical. Honestly, Lena.’

‘I’ve heard you talking about her.’

‘Well. There you are then. When you get leave next, go to Cairo for a couple of days. I’ll come with you if I can. Or when you’re driving about in that ugly truck of yours, surely you could sneak off. I’ll give you the address, but you can’t see her until the sun has set. That’s the rule.’

‘I expect you pay her,’ I scoffed. I knew of charlatans like this. There were enough of them at the country fairs each year, each one saying they could predict your future and talking absolute nonsense.

‘No. Noor doesn’t accept payment. She says it is her gift to give to others. The only payment she takes is for any tinctures or objects you might want. That’s it. The time she spends with you, though, is free.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, although I felt myself warming to this idea for some reason.

‘You speak a little English? She speaks a little too.’

‘I’m getting better,’ I said. ‘Still learning.’

‘She speaks a little Polish – very little, and a little German too. Between what I knew and what she knew, I think I got the gist of what she was saying.’