Page 52 of The Storyteller of Krakow

To hopefully stop all those dreams and pleas from the dead. Maybe now, we could all be at peace.

16

1944, ABOARD SHIP

I found love in Italy. But it took time.

First, I had to get there. And it wasn’t pretty. I was on a boat again, and boats made me sick. The days before we, the Polish II Corps, left Egypt were so busy that I barely thought about being cooped up in a shell of a boat, rolling about the ocean without any sight of land.

As soon as we boarded, however, the nausea came back thick and fast.

I was sequestered below deck, which meant that our portholes always gave one view – that of water, and here I rolled about on a bunk, praying for my death. I couldn’t stand it – this constant motion.

Anka, the chirpy woman from my camp, was one of my bunkmates and proved somewhat helpful on day two of our voyage, which, considering I’d spent the first day clinging to my bunk like a drowning woman, was no small feat. I’d managed on day two to climb up on deck and focus on the horizon to calm the nausea. I saw her on that deck, where so many stood, feeling that salty breeze on their skin, bouncing around like a little spark, full of energy, offering tea, biscuits and endless chirpy chatter that I could barely manage to answer.

‘Drink this,’ she said, thrusting a tin cup towards me, her dark hair tangled in the wind. ‘It’s just weak tea. It’ll settle your stomach a bit.’

I took it, trembling and wishing I could manage a smile. The waves were high that day, grey and angry, and the ship pitched and rolled like it had a mind of its own.

She watched as I sipped, and I couldn’t help but feel a niggle of annoyance – she was just like Janek.

‘I’m fine,’ I told her and gave her the mug back.

‘Drink it, Lena. Stop being all distant and stubborn.’

‘I’m not stubborn,’ I said, taking it back from her to prove my point.

‘Good woman,’ Anka said. ‘Honestly, I don’t know how you survived so far without me.’ She winked.

I tried to laugh. It came out more like a croak. ‘Not sure I have.’

She didn’t give up, and it was obvious that either she had decided we would be friends, or that she saw me as Janek had – a fragile little thing in need of a caretaker.

Over the next few days, she hovered with small comforts, a hand on my back when the deck lurched, a word of encouragement when my knees buckled. Somehow, by the evening of the fourth day, I was able to stand on deck without the world spinning violently around me. My stomach still protested, but the edges of the nausea had dulled enough that I could sit without white-knuckling the rail.

‘There,’ she said triumphantly as she followed me out to look at the grey waves and weighted sky. ‘See? Not dead yet.’

I managed a weak smile. ‘Not yet,’ I muttered.

‘You’re a strange one, you know that, Lena. We all talk about you. All wondering who you really are. You had that friend, Zosia? She was all right, but she’s got some man now.’

‘Some man?’

‘Janek.’ She clicked her fingers.

‘Yes. Some man,’ I said.

‘Is that why you don’t talk to her now?’

‘Not really,’ I said.

‘She was always a bit – I don’t know the word – needy, or the way she was too eager – I don’t know!’ Anka laughed. ‘I don’t know a lot of things, if I’m honest, Lena. I always liked watching you read those books of yours, then you’d take the engine apart and fiddle with things. I used to think that I’d like to be able to do that – to be that smart.’

‘I’m sure you’re smarter than you think,’ I said.

‘Hardly!’ She laughed again. ‘The men, they’re always saying, “Here comes silly Anka,” or “Here comes Anka with a smile and little else.”’

‘That’s horrible!’