Page 54 of The Storyteller of Krakow

I waited.

‘He stood on the opposite platform,’ she said. ‘Nothing remarkable, if I’m being honest. Dark coat. Hat in his hands. But he looked at me as if he recognised me. Not as men usually look, not weighing, not admiring, not trying their luck. He looked as if he had found me in a crowd he’d half given up on.’

‘That was enough?’

‘More than enough. I was freezing and irritated and within three seconds I had decided he was the answer to something. You know how foolish the mind can be when it’s given very little to work with. One look across a station and suddenly I had built the rest.’

‘Built what?’

‘Everything. A house somewhere with decent curtains. A table by a window. A coat hanging beside mine.’ She gave a quiet laugh. ‘I had practically named our children before the train arrived.’

I laughed.

‘Exactly,’ Anka said. ‘Ridiculous. Then, because God likes a joke, he crossed over. Not to me, as it turned out. To the woman standing two yards to my left.’

‘No.’

‘Yes. Her. A mouse of a thing in brown gloves. He kissed her cheek, took her suitcase, and that was that. Off they went together while I stood there holding my own grand tragedy.’

‘So you weren’t in love after all.’

Anka was quiet for a moment. The ship shifted beneath us.

‘Not with him, I suppose,’ she said at last. ‘Not really. I was in love with the life my mind made from one look. That’s the trouble. Sometimes you don’t fall for the person at all. You fall in love with love.’

‘And how do you tell the difference?’ I asked.

She let out a low laugh. ‘Usually too late.’ Then Anka said, more quietly, ‘It isn’t always foolishness either. Sometimes it’s hunger. Sometimes you’ve lost enough that the smallest opening begins to look like fate.’

I looked out at the sea that dipped and then grew.

‘Have you ever done that?’ she asked. ‘Made a whole future out of almost nothing? Or just told yourself stories.’

‘Sometimes,’ I said. ‘But not about falling in love.’

The boat suddenly dipped, then rose as it rode a wave.

‘They’re getting bigger,’ she said, without a hint of worry.

My stomach was already worried, and I gripped the railing.

‘You want to go inside?’ she asked, then she gave a half-scream, half-laugh. ‘I meant to tell you.’ She gripped my shoulders. ‘Damn it. And I forgot. But I know someone you will want to see! And he’s a soldier too.’

She didn’t wait for me to ask any questions; she hurried me off the deck and down metal stairs that were slippery with saltwater.

‘Where are we going? What soldier?’ I managed to ask as we went down yet another set of stairs, past our deck, down into the belly of this steel giant.

‘Wojtek. He’s in the cargo hold,’ she said. ‘He got his corporal rank, so could come with. I remember you saying you were sad you weren’t going to see him until we got there, but they put him on our ship, and I found him!’ She clapped her hands. ‘Well, I didn’t find him, but someone told me he was down in the cargo hold, and when he was let out of his crate, he went a bit mad and was messing with all the supplies. Everyone has been taking turns going down to talk to him. I haven’t. Not a chance. But I knew you’d want to!’

The nausea disappeared, and I felt a rush of energy. Wojtek was here! I hadn’t seen him since he staved off Janek for me, and try as I might, in Egypt, I had no time to go and see him and feared that perhaps I would never see him again.

I ran after Anka. The air changed as we went down, grew thicker. The noise of the engines felt closer, like a second heartbeat under the floor.

Anka walked quickly, glancing back to make sure I was still following.

When we reached the cargo hold, I saw him at once.

He sat on the floor in a large metal crate, boxes stacked around him, broad back to us, head bent over something in his paws. He looked larger than I remembered. Or maybe the space made him seem that way.