Page 81 of The Storyteller of Krakow

I nodded and did not add that it was not I who had ended the friendship, nor distanced myself from her.

‘And, you know, I had Janek and all that. And that was fine, I suppose.’

There – the bait. I took it.

‘Did he tell you not to talk to me?’ I asked. ‘Has he told you not to talk to anyone but him?’

She gave a quick nod as if saying the words themselves were too much to have hanging in the air of that cab between us.

She looked at me, then: ‘I’m sorry, Lena. I’ve been stuck in my head too long, listening to the wrong voices.’

I was about to tell her that I was sorry too – although I knew I had nothing to be sorry about; I just wanted to bridge the gap between us and try to forge something new. But I couldn’t. For once, I was lost and had to stop to look at the maps and see how I could get us as close as possible to the farmhouse. Zosia proved herself someone adept at map reading and bit by bit, we managed to get quite high before abandoning the truck and continuing on foot.

Zosia did not talk as we walked and I let the silence sit. She would say more when she was ready. As she walked, I looked at her and saw that she was thinner than she had been and a few neat bruises, already fading to grey, were on her wrists.

She had said she was ready for a bit of trouble, and I wondered what kind of trouble she would receive when she returned to Janek.

Soon, though, we reached the farmhouse, and I took Zosia to the cellar, to Matthias, who was in and out of a delirium – his eyes flickering open, then closed again.

Zosia knelt beside him as if he were any other patient. She touched his neck, his wrist, then lifted the bandage without flinching. ‘Fever,’ she said flatly. ‘And that wound is dirty. He’s been lucky until now.

‘Hold the torch higher,’ Zosia said. ‘And don’t faint. If you faint, I’ll slap you and then I’ll still have to do the work.’

She cleaned the wound properly – better than I had done – quick and thorough, muttering under her breath as she opened his shirt, revealing the wound in all its glory. Then she moved to the leg, and with quick hands straightened the bone, making Matthias cry out in pain before he passed out again.

She then injected him with something and made me douse a clean cloth with cold water and place it on his forehead.

‘He’s lucky to still be alive,’ she said. ‘And he won’t be for long if he stays here.’

I nodded and kept the cloth on his forehead, thinking that one day, one day in the future, this would be one of our stories too.

‘Why did you do this, Lena?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘This. Risk so much for an enemy. Why not just have him surrender?’

‘He was scared,’ I simply said.

‘And?’ she prompted.

Obviously, Zosia was not one for waiting for someone else to tell their story.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

Then, Zosia’s face crinkled in concern. I thought she was looking at Matthias, but it was me. She reached out and placed her hand on my forehead.

I laughed. But it felt nice. Cool.

‘You have a fever too,’ she said. ‘You’re not well, Lena.’

‘I’m as well as I ever am,’ I said. Then, oddly, I told her that I had been to a zoo once and seen a bear with my father and that afterwards I think I had been poorly because I couldn’t remember seeing the bear, but my father said we had seen one.

‘Lena.’ Zosia’s voice was firm. ‘You are not well.’

23

1944, MONTE CASSINO, ITALY