Page 86 of The Storyteller of Krakow

I needed to speak. I needed to yell. Before I understood what I was doing, I was back in the driver’s seat.

No one stopped me this time.

The road to the farmhouse blurred. My hands were still sticky on the wheel. I had not changed. I had not washed. And I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I was followed. I didn’t care if they found Matthias, I didn’t care if I got into trouble. Nothing mattered any more.

I climbed down into the cellar and found him sitting upright, his back against the wall, his face pale, but his eyes were open.

‘She’s dead,’ I said.

He did not ask who.

‘My friend,’ I added hoarsely. ‘The one I told you about. Anka, the one who said she fell in love all the time?’

He swallowed.

‘I was sick,’ I said. ‘She went without me. They said it was too dangerous to go back. They said to wait.’ My voice rose, shaking. ‘They always say wait.’

He said nothing.

‘Her blood was everywhere,’ I whispered. ‘In the olive trees. On the road. On me.’

My hands began to tremble.

‘Lena,’ he said and held out his arms.

I went to him. I went to the embrace of the enemy. One of those in their uniforms who had killed my friend.

If I had been lucid, if I had heard this story from someone else, even, I would have said this was wrong. I would have said that this was some sort of treason. I would have said that it was pure madness. But I was neither myself nor someone else; I was me, Lena, and my friend was dead.

I do not know how long Matthias held me. I do not know if he spoke words of comfort; I do not even know if I cried or wailed. All I know, all I remember still, is the warmth of his arms around me and the scent of his skin: dirt mixed with blood, and a smell that was his – only his.

At some point, the noises came. Heavy boots, angry voices in Polish, closer every second. The cellar door crashed open, splinters and dust. Polish soldiers filled the room, guns raised and eyes wide. I stepped forward, shielding him. But they didn’t hesitate; strong hands pulled me away, and those same hands yanked Matthias up.

Janek’s voice came next. He was there, standing, smiling. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘What has Lena done?’

‘He’s sick,’ I said. ‘Leave him alone!’ I tried to push Janek aside, tried to get to Matthias, who was being dragged up the steps, but Janek grabbed my arm tightly.

‘Anka’s dead,’ Janek hissed. ‘And your boyfriend might be next.’

More soldiers came. Hands that dragged me now out into the daylight. Janek didn’t touch me again, he didn’t need to, he just kept himself close, whispering into my ears that Anka’s death was my doing, that I had brought all of this on myself. ‘You’ll answer for this,’ he said. ‘Helping the enemy. Treason, if they feel poetic.’ Then I saw him raise his fingers to his temple as if he had an imaginary gun.

I was thrown into a truck, alongside two soldiers, Matthias in another. My head swirled with what was happening and for a moment I thought I was back on the train, crammed beside strangers being taken to the work camp.

I yelled out that I didn’t want to go. That Mother and Father would not survive, but no one made any sense as they talked to me – tried to tell me that we were in Italy.

Once the truck stopped, I was marched through camp like I was a trophy. I heard my name passed from mouth to mouth. I heard someone say ‘whore’ and someone else say ‘idiot’ and it still did not make any sense to me.

In a small tent that smelled of ink and sweat, an officer asked questions I couldn’t answer, and I kept asking whether Mother had survived the shot to her head, and whether Father had talked. I rambled about Piotr, about our home. I told them about how he played chess and the piano. I told them I wanted to go home.

Suddenly, the room tipped. A hot wave rolled through my gut. I remember grabbing the edge of the table, and then I was on my knees, retching, nothing but bile onto the ground.

Someone swore. Someone said, ‘Get her out of here.’ Someone pressed fingers to my wrist, felt my skin, and frowned. ‘She’s in shock,’ he said. ‘She’s burning up.’

‘Christ,’ someone said. ‘She’s not well.’

Someone else snorted. ‘Not well?’ he said. ‘She’s out of her mind.’

That day, night and into the following day, I drifted in and out, half-hearing voices, half-understanding where I was one minute, and the next I would remember Anka’s body, her blood on me, and then Matthias, and then suddenly I would be back in the gulag, cold, alone.