Page 43 of The Storyteller of Krakow

‘And what did she say?’ I asked.

Anka shook her head. ‘That’s for me. I won’t tell. She’s just good. Trust me, Lena, I think it will really help you.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said.

‘Don’t think too long. She moves about sometimes, she said. I don’t know where she said she goes, but she moves when she needs to. She might not even be there now.’

‘So why are you telling me to go there then if she might not be there?’

‘You have to chance it, Lena. It’ll be worth it.’

Anka left my bed and climbed back into her own. Soon, I could hear her gently snoring.

I thought of what she had said about this woman called Noor. I wasn’t sure I wanted my future told to me. But I wanted something – I wanted to be able to talk to someone who didn’t know me and would never see me again and try to explain all the thoughts that rattled around inside my head. My parents, Piotr, the guilt, Janek, and losing Zosia. The feeling, too, of being wrong, being different.

I turned and thought back to my childhood, how I had never really been like the other girls, and it hadn’t bothered me one bit. But now, it was niggling at me a little. Zosia had found it strange how I didn’t talk to the other women. Janek had said I looked like a man. Not that I really cared what I looked like, but why was I the way I was? Why couldn’t I talk to the other women, and why was it that instead, I befriended a bear that couldn’t talk back?

Eventually, I fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming scattered dreams of the past where I felt almost safe.

* * *

My opportunity to go and see Noor came a few days later when, on the way back from a delivery, I found myself twenty miles from Cairo with a flat tyre. It was a bright, still day where the sand and dust were happily settled where they belonged, and not in my face or up my nostrils.

I went to the rear of the truck to get out the spare, and found that it too had a puncture.

‘Damn it!’

I radioed back to base, and the crackled voice on the other end told me it would be a few hours at least, if not in the early morning. Everyone, it seemed, was busy.

We had been trained for something like this, ensuring we had an overnight bag in our cabin, food and a blanket, and I had all of these things. But sitting by the side of the road as no traffic went by, as there was little to look at other than slight rolls of sand dunes, I got incredibly bored incredibly quickly.

When a jeep then drove up, I was thankful that I would not be stuck out here all night with my own thoughts – they’d obviously managed to find someone to help.

But as it grew closer, I saw that it was not a Pole, but a British uniformed officer in the driving seat.

He slowed and leaned out of the window.

‘Spot of trouble?’ he asked.

My English, still a little childish, made me sound stupid when I first tried to answer him. ‘Car is to broke.’

‘Polish, yes?’ he said, climbing out. ‘Let me see.’

I was pleasantly surprised that I understood most of what he said, and tried to remember to reply in full sentences rather than the pidgin English that had come out of my mouth.

‘I can get you a new wheel. Off to the city. Hop in if you want. I’ll get you what you need and bring you back. Can’t get you back here though until ten-ish or so, have the orders, you know, meetings and whatnot.’ He chuckled. ‘Never ends. I wish I was just back with the lot of them, trenches and things. But got too old, didn’t I? And with the bad knee.’ He stopped and pulled out a slim silver cigarette case, flicked it open and offered me one.

‘Smoke?’

‘No. I am thank you though.’

‘Nicely said. Well then. You want to radio and let your pals know? Don’t want them thinking you’ve gone off into the desert now, do we? Deserted in the desert! Ha!’

He lit his cigarette and continued to laugh at himself, although I wasn’t really sure what he meant. I understood most of what he had said, but what was whatnot? What was hop in?

‘I come with you, yes, to the city.’

‘Indeed you can, m’dear. And get a new tyre.’ He pointed at the flat I had.