Page 51 of The Storyteller of Krakow

I made myself spend the day tidying my room, taking my food in with me, and watching awful soap operas on TV.

By late afternoon, I sat in the green chair and looked out of the window, finding that, for some reason, I couldn’t stop looking at the leaves on one of the bushes in the grounds. The leaves that hung on for dear life as the wind whipped at branches and made their friends rain and scatter onto the damp pavement. I oddly thought that was me. The leaf that refuses to let go. It could be my age. Here I was, old, and clinging to a flimsy branch, clinging onto that slim chance of life when I should let go and confetti myself onto the world below, to those who were still truly alive.

I wondered why I continued to cling. Was it because I was told during my childhood by my grandparents and by those awful girls at school that I talked too little or too much, that I wasn’t ladylike enough, that I was rude, that I was simply not good enough?

And to be good enough, you had to fight. To keep going. To try to prove everyone wrong. To try and show you could be it all, but you would always fall short, but no matter, you’d never stop trying. So perhaps the critical words, from my grandparents, from Janek, from girls at school, were not as bad as I thought. Without them, would I have survived this long? Would I have had the experiences I’d had?

I felt all of a sudden for Hana. She was being bullied, unsure of who she was, a useless father, her mother harried and working to survive. My stomach turned. I had to tell her she was good. She was who she was. There was nothing wrong. I had to tell her that Wojtek changed things for me. Made me want to fight, this time not to prove anything for my long-departed parents, but to me, to show myself who I truly was.

But I knew I couldn’t go and see Hana tonight. Kasia had rung to let me know the service lift was out until the next day, and there was no way I’d manage the stairs, not with my knees aching as they did. It left me feeling helpless, the distance between us suddenly stretched further by failing machinery and my own limitations. Instead, I was stuck in my room with my memories, my stories, my worries, trying to make sense of them all before I saw Hana again.

That night, the gutters were blocked. The rainwater splattered down my windows as if someone were hosing them. The noise was too much for me, that splat-splat against the glass. I just couldn’t take it and left my room, a cream terry cloth robe tied around me, and made my way to the common room.

In here, during the day, the TV would blare some show where everyone seemed to be in a bad mood. The residents would sit, engrossed, on the chairs and sofas, ignoring the stacked books on shelves all around them.

Now, it was quiet, save for the rain hitting the glass here in a normal fashion.

I switched on a lamp and went about my business, looking for a book I hadn’t yet read, and saw that Grażyna was here, sat on a chair in the darkness, worrying at a pair of knitting needles, trying to pull away a knot in her blue wool.

‘Why are you awake?’ I asked as I approached.

She squinted at me behind her thick glasses, and then she hit upon my name. ‘Lena. Gosh, isn’t it awful weather? Isn’t it just awful. People out there drowning, I expect.’

‘No one is drowning,’ I said, sitting down next to her.

‘But there are people who drown, Lena. Rivers rise. Didn’t you know?’

‘I know,’ I said, gently taking the needles away from her and fiddling with the knot for myself.

‘I’m making it for—’ She stopped and looked upwards as if the answer lay on the ceiling.

‘A grandson?’ I queried.

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Do you make things for your grandsons?’

‘I don’t have any.’

‘Really. Oh my. What a shame. Granddaughters then. You have some of those at least?’

‘None of those either.’ This knot was a problem. Goodness knows how she’d managed to get it this tight.

‘That is very sad,’ she said, then sniffed and pulled out a tissue she had hidden up the sleeve of her dressing gown. ‘A husband then?’ she tried.

I looked at her, and, knowing her mind, I didn’t feel I could let her down much more before she got very upset and alerted the powers that be, who would escort us back to our rooms.

‘Not a husband, exactly,’ I told her.

‘A love at least? Please say you had a lover, Lena? Oh, how wonderful! A lover. I read these books. I don’t know what they were. But there was always a lover. Intrigue and all sorts of things going on. Please tell me you had one of those. All passion, and maybe two lovers. Maybe that would be better. Two lovers, or even three. Did you have three lovers, Lena?’

‘I thought I had one,’ I said, finally freeing the knot and wrapping the wool around the needle to get her back on track. ‘But I might have got it wrong.’

‘Tell me about it,’ she said, leaning back into the cushions. ‘I never had a lover. At least I don’t think I did. I can’t remember a lot, Lena. Agnieszka says I’m terrible for remembering things. Do you know that I can’t remember things?’

‘I know,’ I said, trying to remember myself how to knit. Knit one, purl one…

‘Tell me, Lena.’

I placed the knitting needles in my lap, sat back against the cushions and let Grażyna take my hand as I went into the past once more, to finally tell some of the story that had left me alone all these years.