The Winter Guest (14 page)

“I’m fine,” Ruth replied quickly, her voice oddly unemotional. She blinked, a slight hesitation, and Helena wondered if her sister was telling the truth. “The children don’t even know,” she added. “Michal and Dorie were out playing in the field. And Karolina was asleep almost the whole time.”

Helena’s body went slack with relief. Everyone was fine. But it could have been so much worse.
I should have been here,
she berated herself silently.
If it wasn’t for Sam I would have been. Of course, if it wasn’t for him, none of this would have happened in the first place.

“He left just as suddenly,” Ruth finished. Helena leaped up and raced to the window. “He took the goat,” Ruth added, her voice cracking.

Helena bit her lip, fighting the urge to rebuke Ruth. The goat had been their last hope, providing a sour but drinkable milk. He, along with the mule, might have one day been a source of meat as a last resort. But it was just an animal, and her sister was in no condition for scolding. “It’s not your fault,” she offered as Ruth began to cry. “There was nothing you could have done to stop him.”

“Oh, Helena,” Ruth sobbed quietly now. “How could anyone think that we were hoarding?” Then she looked up questioningly. “Unless you...” Ruth trailed off, reluctant to finish the thought.

Helena did not answer. Her mind reeled back to a time when they were six and playing in Mama’s armoire. Ruth had tried to hand her a bottle of perfume but it slipped between their fingers and shattered on the floor. Helena rushed to find a cloth to clean it up before Mama noticed, but when she returned, their mother was standing in the doorway. “Ruth!” Mama had cried out, taking in Ruth as the lone culprit. In the moment, Helena was pleased. She was always the one in trouble for breaking things or messing up. Immediately afterward, though, she began to regret her silence. Ruth always came to her aid when she was in trouble, with a kind word or shared treat to comfort her. How could she let her sister take the blame? But by then, it was too late—confessing her role in the accident days later would mean admitting she had lied. And so the secret had remained buried and nearly forgotten.

Ruth reached for her hand. Helena did not want to answer. But she couldn’t lie to her sister about this. “It was me.” Ruth’s mouth formed a small circle of surprise. “I’m sorry.”

“But why? Surely not for yourself.”

“No, of course not.” They both tried so hard to eat as little as possible, passing on whatever they could to the little ones. Helena searched for a plausible alternative explanation. She considered telling Ruth that she’d taken the food to the hospital to bribe the hospital staff. But that would be another lie. Helena swallowed. She wanted to say nothing. Until now, Sam had been hers, only hers. She bit her lip, keeping the secret her own for just a few seconds more. Finally, she could hide it no longer. “A...man.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Remember the night I thought there were bombs?”

Ruth nodded. “You were wrong.”

“I was wrong.” Helena brushed aside her annoyance. Why between them was it always about fault? “But the next day on the way back from seeing Mama, I discovered a man in the woods. An American soldier.” Ruth gasped audibly and Helena realized how much had changed in the weeks that Sam had come. His presence, which had become so much a part of Helena’s life, was nearly unfathomable to Ruth. “Sa— The soldier, was badly wounded.” She did not share his name, keeping that one thing for herself.

“So you helped him.” There was a disapproving note to Ruth’s voice.

“Yes. Just some wood and a bit of food. You would have done the same,” she added, daring Ruth to disagree.

Ruth’s eyes were wide. “You never said a word.” The sisters had never had secrets before. “So that’s what the policeman was talking about.”

“Better then that you didn’t know and have to lie.” Because Ruth could not keep a secret, hung the silent implication between them.

“He’s still at the chapel?” Ruth asked, her voice breathy with disbelief. Helena nodded. “He has to leave.”

“He can’t. His leg is injured but healing. He’ll be leaving soon. It’s exciting in a way,” she added. Beside her, Ruth stiffened. “I just mean, things before were so boring.”

“Helena, do you
like
this man?” An amused note crept into Ruth’s voice. “Surely you can’t think—”

“No, of course not.” Her sister’s incredulousness was a kick to the stomach. Why was the notion of a man having feelings for her so impossible for Ruth to fathom?

“In any event, you can’t see him again.”

“But he has no food. Without me, he’ll die.”

“That isn’t our concern. Don’t you see?” Ruth’s voice grew shrill. Then, glancing down at the children, she dropped to a whisper. “Every time you go there you’re endangering us, them. If someone finds out, we’ll be arrested or worse.”

“That won’t happen.” But her voice wavered with uncertainty.

“It already
has.
” Ruth’s voice crackled with anger. She was right, of course. Helena had thought she was being so careful. Yet even a few extra vegetables and some cheese had not gone unnoticed.

Still, she could not stand the idea of leaving Sam on his own. “But he’s here to help us.”

“No one will help us but ourselves. Who is going to put food on the table or care for the children if something happens to you?” Helena did not respond. Ruth put her hand on Helena’s. “I’m sorry,” she said softening. “I’m sure you like him, but we have to think of the children.”

“It’s not that,” Helena protested. But feeling the blush creep into her cheeks, she knew her sister would not be fooled.

“With Piotr...” Ruth began, then her voice trailed off.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She was thinking, Helena knew, of what might have been. Piotr would have married Ruth if she had been willing to move away and leave her family behind. Ruth had refused, of course, and he had gone. Ruth had never said as much, not wanting her sister to feel a burden. But she was telling Helena now that she understood the sacrifice, demanding that Helena do the same:
I chose you.

It was not the same, Helena told herself. Ruth could not have possibly felt for Piotr what she did for Sam. Despite that, Helena knew that she had no choice. “Fine,” she relented.

As Ruth turned back to her knitting, Helena picked up a book of poetry that Michal had gotten at market some time ago. As she tried to read, her thoughts were interrupted by visions of the chapel just a few hours earlier, to Sam’s admission that he cared for her, the proposal of a life together. Sitting in the warmth of his embrace had been the happiest moment she had ever known. But in the next minute it had been extinguished, a flame too tiny and new to withstand the stormy gusts of wind that surrounded it.

I could go with him,
she thought.
Maybe we could send for Ruth and the others and it really would be all right.

A while later, Helena gave up reading and set down the book. Ruth extinguished the lamp. Her fingernails dug into the back of Helena’s hand suddenly. “So you promise, you won’t see him again?” Her voice cut through the darkness, reading Helena’s thoughts.

Helena hesitated, resting her hand on Michal’s back. “I promise.” But she remembered Sam as he sat against the wall of the chapel. Though she had told him that she wanted him to leave without warning, he had not said the same. No, she could not disappear without an explanation and have him think that she had deserted him. She had to return one more time to make him understand.

“Now perhaps things can go back to the way they were,” Ruth mumbled drowsily. Helena did not answer. She did not want to go back, even if it were possible.

Ruth’s fingers laced with her sister’s, as if forming a protective arc over the sleeping children between them. They began to breathe in unison and soon it was hard to tell where Ruth’s hand ended and her own began.
I promise.
The words echoed in Helena’s mind in time with Michal’s gentle snores, his back rising and falling beneath her touch. She saw Sam, alone by the fire in the chapel and with each breath the image seemed to grow dimmer and farther away, until it faded and was gone.

11

The next morning Helena made her way slowly through the predawn darkness of the forest, holding aloft the flashlight that Sam had given her. The silence, suffocating and deep, seemed to press down around her.

Something brushed against her face. A cobweb, she realized, swatting it away. As she did, a rustling sound came from the brush beside the path. Helena stopped. She was just steps from where she had heard a similar noise and found Sam. She walked to the bushes where he had lain. They were undisturbed and as she pushed them back she thought she might find him there again, helpless as a sleeping child. But a small brown mole glared at her disdainfully before scurrying away. Studying the bare earth, her heart swelled. What if she had never taken this route? Was having found Sam worth the knife that seemed to dig at her insides now, knowing that she would not see him again?

Helena forced herself to keep moving, her legs heavy and unwilling. Soon she reached the clearing before the chapel. The windows were dark. She had come at this hour deliberately, hoping that Sam would still be asleep.

She approached the church, clutching the package of food inside her bag. It was bigger than normal, and more than she should have taken. But she had not had time—nor would she have dared—to go to market again. This was to be the last visit, so she wanted to bring him as much as possible. Earlier, Ruth had heard her moving about and had come from the bedroom, eyeing the satchel she was packing, appraising its size. Helena had met her eyes defiantly, daring her sister to protest that she could not be taking all of that food to their mother. But Ruth had not said anything, and a minute later Helena left the house without explanation. Perhaps Ruth understood from her own loss of Piotr that Helena needed to come here once more to say goodbye.

Of course, she wasn’t actually going to do that. Helena couldn’t disappear without telling Sam—but she couldn’t bear to see him again and to walk away, knowing it was the last time. She had scribbled a note: “I’m sorry that I cannot come to see you anymore, but my siblings need me at home. Be safe. Fondly, Helena.” She had agonized over that last bit for some time, vacillating between ending the note “with love” or just her name, and finally settling somewhere in the middle. She hated to lie about the reason she could no longer come, but she did not want to tell Sam about the police, to worry him or admit that he had been right about helping him being too dangerous. She’d included a small photograph of herself as he’d asked.

Helena crept closer to the chapel door, the twigs beneath her feet seeming to betray her every step. She peered through the window. Sam lay by the nearly cold stove, curled up in a ball, much as he had been when she’d found him under the bush. But his face was peaceful now, his breathing even. Desire rose up in her and she desperately wanted to run through the door and lie down beside him, to revel in the embrace she had dreamed a thousand times but not fully experienced. She considered the idea: If it was to be the last time, why not have everything? Silent hands of reason seemed to restrain her. It was not that she thought it would be wrong—she felt whole with Sam in a way that transcended any social conventions. Rather, she knew that if she got that close to him she would never be able to pull away. That was the whole reason for coming now, before dawn, on her way to Mama instead of on the way home: if he was still asleep, she would not have to look in his eyes and tell him goodbye.

She swallowed over the lump in her throat. No, this was as close as she dared to get. She set down the package she’d put together, the extra food designed to last him as long as possible, the blanket and finally the note. She gazed once more at the only man she had ever loved, watching the visions of the life they might have had together rise and fade into the leaves like smoke. Then she turned and walked with leaden feet back into the darkness of the woods.

Two hours later, Helena made her way to the top of the hill above the city. As she surveyed the streets below, Sam’s face appeared in her mind. It was midmorning now, and he would be awake. If he had ventured outside already, he would have found her note and realized that she was gone for good. She stopped, her sadness and disappointment exploding within her heart. She had failed him—not only was she abandoning him, but she had not been able to reach the resistance.

She crossed the Planty, the thin strip of parkland that ringed the Old City, now gray with dry, withered brush. Beyond the buildings to the north, the towers of the Mariacki Cathedral stood high against the slate-gray sky, beckoning her, and she wondered whether she should attempt once more to make contact. Helena knew that she should visit Mama quickly and return home, in case the policeman decided to pay another visit. But if she was to abandon Sam, the least she could do was to try one last time to fulfill her promise to help him. A quick detour would harm no one. Determined now, she started toward the Old City.

At the edge of the
rynek,
she stopped, contemplating the entranceway to the cathedral. She could try to make contact there again, of course, but there was no greater chance that anyone would be willing to help. She recalled overhearing the men whispering to one another.
“Pod Gwiazdami,”
one had said to the other, seemingly speaking about a planned meeting.
Under the stars.
It referred, she assumed, to a bar or
kawiarnia
of some sort—she’d observed that several establishments around the old city were called “pod” something-or-other, presumably because they were located beneath the streets of the market square, a subterranean maze of medieval cellars now serving food and drink.

She walked the perimeter of the square uncertainly, peering down the streets that fanned out in all directions. The sidewalks bustled with pedestrians navigating around parked trucks making morning deliveries. At the corner, a man selling stale
obwarzanki
pretzel rings that no one had the desire or coins to buy anymore eyed her curiously. Her skin prickled. Loitering much longer would arouse suspicion. She did not have time to search endlessly for the café and dared not ask someone on the street for fear of provoking questions. Finally, she walked down Florianska Street, which ended a hundred meters farther at the remnants of the medieval stone wall that had once surrounded the city. A decorative wrought-iron cluster of stars jutted out above one of the doorways, signaling the café below.

Looking down the stairway, she hesitated. Were such places even open this early in the day? She walked down the stone steps, holding the wall so as not to slip. The windowless brick cellar had been made into a café, with a half-dozen tables set at haphazard angles and a crudely hewn oak bar at the back of the room. Candlelight flickered long shadows against the walls, giving it the appearance of evening. A scrawny Christmas tree lilted in the corner. She lingered by the stairs uncertainly. There were no restaurants in Biekowice—people bought food at market or grew it or killed it and took it to their own homes to cook and eat. She marveled now at the way the handful of patrons sat among one another, each cluster or pair having its own conversation as though the tables on either side did not exist.

Behind the bar a man looked up at her and she realized she was supposed to ask for something to drink.
“Kawa, prosz˛e,”
she requested. It was the cheapest thing she could think of to order.

He waved toward the tables with disinterest. “Seat yourself anywhere.” She slid onto a wood bench along one of the walls and scanned the room, then took a sip from the cup of black coffee a waiter placed in front of her. What now?

A man she had not seen arrive slid onto the bench beside her. As he pressed swiftly against her side, she stifled a gasp. He kissed her on the cheek, his breath a mix of tobacco and liquor reminiscent of Tata’s. Before she could react, he did the same on the other side. “Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise.

The waiter returned and set a menu in front of her. “
Dzi˛eki,
but I don’t want anything to eat.”

“I think you do,” the voice beside her said, sure and firm. Without looking up, she knew she had found someone who could help her find the resistance.

“Some bread, please,” she said, too nervous to read the menu.

“I’ll have the fish,” the stranger added. “Put your arm around me,” he instructed when the waiter had gone. The wool of his coat was scratchy beneath her palm as she complied. There was something calming and sure about his voice that made her obey, without questioning the odd command.

“I’m looking for the resistance.”

“Shh!” She noticed for the first time a man sitting across the room watching them with interest, and understood then the fiction of being a couple. “You know you could be killed just for saying that?”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t say it again.” She studied him. He was five, maybe six years older than her, with pale hair and a trim goatee. “I’m the one you’re looking for.”

“How did you know?”

“Someone told me you were asking for me at the cathedral.” So the man who had taken the coin had kept his word. “I didn’t think he’d told you where to find me, though.”

“He didn’t.”

“Then how... Never mind.” He pulled back, then stared at her expectantly. “What do you need?”

She hesitated. Now that she had found him, she was suddenly at a loss for words. “My name is Helena Nowak. I’m from Biekowice and I need to pass on a message to the partisans through the resistance. Do you have a name?”

“I do. Does it matter?” His words came out in short bursts, as if unable to spare more.

“I suppose not. But how do I know you can help?”

“You don’t. You’ll just have to trust.”
Trust.
Could there have been a stranger word in these times? “I’m Alek. Alek Landesberg.” Her jaw dropped slightly. So she had found him, after all. “Anyway, you wanted to make contact and I don’t have a lot of time. What do you want?”

She inhaled, then took the leap. “There’s an American soldier and he needs help.”

“There
was
an American soldier,” he interjected, cutting her off again. “He was captured, unfortunately.”

Panic seized Helena. Had something happened to Sam? But the stranger could not possibly be talking about Sam, she realized. She had just left him. One of Sam’s crewmates must have been found, after all. “Not that soldier. Another one.” Alek blinked, trying without success to disguise his shock. “He’s trying to make contact with the partisans in Czechoslovakia.”

Alek raised his hand slightly off the table, signaling silence as the waiter reappeared. He twirled a match between his fingers as the waiter set down a plate of bread and smoked fish in front of them. Despite the faintly sour smell the mottled fish gave off, Helena’s mouth salivated. She averted her eyes.

He pushed the plate toward her with a nod. “You can eat.”

She thought of the few coins she carried with her when she traveled; surely they would not be enough. “But I don’t have money.”

“Don’t worry, I can pay.” She took a bite, the rich savory taste that filled her mouth a forgotten dream. “Where is he?”

Now it was Helena’s turn to pause. Once she gave him Sam’s location, there was no turning back. She passed him the note Sam had scribbled.

He took the note and scanned it. Then with one swift gesture, he struck the match under the table and raised the flame to the paper. “What is it that you want me to do?”

“Get him out of there and over the border.” Helena forced the quiver from her voice.

“That’s it?” He eyed her levelly. “Do you have any idea what kind of risk that would entail to our operations? I don’t have time to help you. We’ve got hundreds of men fighting for our cause in the woods, Polish men in need of food and care and medicine.”

“But he cannot stay where he is. It is essential that he get out!” Remembering the man at the other table, Helena dropped her voice. “His work is critical to the war effort.”

“No single man is that important.”

She wondered how much to reveal. “He is the only possibility of connecting the partisans to the west. He could mean reinforcements and provisions, which could make a difference for the whole war effort.” She was stretching the truth now, saying more than she knew in her attempt to persuade him.

He stroked his goatee. “Let’s say we were willing to help your soldier. How do I know that you can be trusted?”

He had a point. Though it seemed implausible, Helena herself could be a spy. “Because I want to help you.” She had not planned to say this, but once she did, she realized it was the truth. “Beyond this, I mean.”

He eyed her skeptically. “What is it that you think you can do?”

“Deliver messages. I’m good at getting around.”

“Couriers I have.” The man looked her up and down and a wrinkle of something, not disdain exactly but skepticism, crossed his face. Suddenly she saw herself as he must—young and inexperienced, a country girl. His doubts magnified thousandfold in her, exploding. Who was she, anyway, to think she could do this, or anything, to help?

An image flashed through her mind then of the German soldier atop the tank who had nearly caught her in the forest that day. He had just been ordinary, too, before he had chosen his wretched path. “I’m small,” she blurted out. “And not at all what you expect. Isn’t that sort of how your group operates? It’s an advantage. After all, I found you, didn’t I?” She did not wait, knowing he would not answer the question.

He stood abruptly and left some coins on the table. “I have to go.”

“That’s it?” Her heart fell.

“I wait tables at Wierzynek and the lunch preparations start in half an hour.” She cocked her head. Unlike the modest café in which they now sat, Wierzynek was one of the finest restaurants in the city, forbidden now even to Poles who could afford it. It seemed like an odd place of employment for someone from the resistance. “You can learn a lot from such a place.” Of course. Working in a restaurant was not only an effective way to transmit information without being noticed, but to gather a great deal from overhearing the patrons—especially in a café frequented by senior German officials.