Page 92 of The Storyteller of Krakow

He nodded as if he could see inside my head, see the silly story I had told myself.

‘The bear,’ he said, then chuckled. ‘I did tell my wife about the bear. She didn’t believe me.’

‘It was real,’ I said.

‘I know.’

‘All of it was real,’ I said.

‘I know,’ he repeated. ‘Although I was sick. There are blanks there. I remember you, though. I remember talking. I remember the bear.’

I didn’t know what else to say, so let him fill in the silence.

‘How long are you staying? I can tell my wife about you tonight and then perhaps tomorrow you can come round for supper? I owe you that at least – you did save my life.’ He smiled at me, a warm smile, and I suddenly realised that I did not really know this man at all. I knew only snippets of what we had been through, but there had been no romance, no promises made, yet I had woven a beautiful story in my mind that was now collapsing under the weight of its heavy, badly sewn stitches.

I stood. ‘I have to leave today, now, even.’

‘Oh, I mean. Well,’ he said and stood too.

‘I will not come again,’ I said, more to myself than to him.

‘I am glad you came,’ he replied.

‘I am not sure I am,’ I said.

I turned towards the church gate.

‘Lena.’

I paused but did not look back.

‘I will always remember you,’ he said. ‘The warrior woman who saved my life!’

I walked away. I did not look back at the bench. I did not look towards his street.

At the edge of town, I allowed myself one brief, private collapse against the stone wall of the station, breath shaking, hands pressed to my mouth to keep from making a sound.

Then I stood.

The train would come.

And I would board it.

And somewhere beyond this divided country, beyond mountains and cellars and soldiers wearing the wrong uniform with frightened eyes, I would have to learn how to live without the life I had imagined, but I would have a better one: a real one, not one that was directed by a man – any man.

The train whistle sounded in the distance. I focused on it. Listening to it, not listening to the pain in my chest, the thoughts racing around my head.

I’d live. I’d carry on, and I’d stop making up stories for myself. Instead I would live. Live in reality. I would not be forced to find freedom elsewhere. I was Polish. I would fight and live and breathe in my land, and no one would stop me. For I, Lena, was a warrior.

27

1954, EDINBURGH

Edinburgh in early spring, when winter was still clinging on, smelled of wet stone and coal smoke.

I stood outside the gates of the zoo with my gloved hands clasped together, as if I were about to enter a church.

The sign read Edinburgh Zoo in careful lettering, the paint still bright against the ironwork. Beyond it, the grounds rose gently uphill, terraces cut into the slope, patches of green startling after the grey streets below.