Magda's Daughter (37 page)

‘Do you know why Magda didn't tell me the truth?'

‘We never wrote about it. But I think we both knew that the truth would upset you, and we wanted to protect you. It's easy to delay making difficult decisions. To say, “I'll think about this or that tomorrowË®.'

‘And my father?'

‘I never saw or heard from him again.'

‘His name?'

‘Johann Schmidt, he said.'

‘John Smith,' Helena translated.

Anna smiled grimly. ‘I was very young and naive.'

‘You loved him?'

‘I believed that I loved him. With all my heart and soul, I thought I did.'

‘And that is the truth?'

‘Yes.'

Helena rose from the window seat and went to the door. ‘Thank you. I know this hasn't been easy for you.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You have nothing to be sorry for. You were used and hurt. What happened wasn't your fault.'

‘Such forgiveness.' Anna reached out and Helena took the hand offered to her. ‘I only wish you could have been mine. For a while you were Matylda's, but you were, and still are, Magda's daughter.'

Chapter Twenty-one

Josef was sitting in the kitchen when Helena walked down the stairs into the hall. He lifted the coffee pot when she appeared in the doorway.

‘I've made fresh. Would you like a cup?'

‘Please. I think Anna could do with one as well.' Helena pulled out a chair from the huge scrub-down pine table and sat down.

‘Did Anna tell you everything you wanted to know?'

‘And more.' Helena rested her elbows on the table, propping her chin on the palms of her hands. She felt drained, emotionally, mentally and physically. She couldn't even begin to think through everything Anna had told her. But there was one thing that she wanted to do as soon as possible before she changed her mind. And she needed Josef's help to carry it out.

Josef filled a cup with coffee, and put the sugar bowl and the milk jug in front of Helena. Then he made another cup, poured in a splash of milk, and carried it up the stairs. When he returned, he sat opposite Helena. ‘So what happens now?'

‘In what way?' She picked up the milk jug.

‘The future way. Are you going to stay here and look after your mother? As you see, she needs help. And now that Magda is dead, you have no reason to return to Britain.'

‘Except Ned,' she said quietly.

‘He doesn't understand the Polish side of you.'

‘Helena?'

She looked up and started guiltily. Ned was leaning in the open doorway that led into the yard. Her cheeks burned before she remembered, with relief, that she and Josef had been speaking in Polish. ‘Sorry, Ned, my mind was elsewhere.'

‘That's understandable.'

She had to fight the urge to shout, ‘Stop being so bloody sympathetic!'

‘You've talked to Anna?' he asked.

‘Do you mind if we discuss what she said later?'

‘Not at all.' Ned gave her a reassuring smile.

Josef pushed the coffee pot and a clean cup towards the edge of the table. ‘Coffee, Ned?'

‘No, thank you. But may I borrow your bicycle?' Josef nodded. ‘I thought I'd go to the post office and put in a call to the number Norbert gave us. Even if he gets the message today, he may not be able to pick us up until the day after tomorrow. Is that all right with you?' When she didn't answer immediately he added, ‘We could wait for the bus, but Norbert's car will be quicker and more comfortable.'

‘Fine,' she murmured absently.

Ned wanted to ask her if she intended travelling with him or not, but it was a question that might lead to an argument. And for that they didn't need a witness. Least of all Josef.

‘If anyone else has a bicycle we could borrow, you could come with me,' Ned suggested. ‘You look as though you could do with some fresh air. ‘

‘I have things to do.'

Ned waited for a few moments. When Helena didn't elaborate, he stepped out into the yard. ‘I'll be going, then. See you later?'

‘Yes.'

‘Bye.'

Helena waited until she heard Ned wheel the bicycle through the archway before finishing her coffee. She left her chair and carried the cup to the stone sink. ‘Can you spare me an hour, Josef?'

‘If Anna is all right and doesn't want anything.'

‘Will you visit the Niklas farm with me?'

He came towards her and slipped his arm around her shoulders. ‘Is that wise? Wiktor hates you.'

‘That's why I'd like you to come with me.' She moved away from him.

‘I make a lousy bodyguard,' he warned. ‘I lack the killer instinct required to punch people on the nose.'

‘I don't want anyone to fight on my account. But I saw the way the men deferred to you when you ordered Wiktor to leave here.'

‘Wiktor didn't defer to me,' he said dryly.

‘Only because he was drunk. The others did. And I don't want to confront Wiktor. He, his mother and Julianna were Magda's real family. I have some personal things that I intended to bury in her casket. Ned persuaded me to keep them for my children, if I have any. But after speaking to Julianna, I think she and Maria would treasure them simply because they were Magda's.'

‘Or because you believe that Magda's most treasured possessions belong in the country she never left in her heart?'

‘That, too,' she agreed.

‘Give me ten minutes. If Anna is all right, I'll go to the milkman at the end of the street. He has a spare horse and a trap he uses to take his family out on Sundays. If I can borrow them, we'll drive to the farm. It will save time.'

Josef knocked on Anna's bedroom door quietly lest she had already fallen asleep again. When there was no answer he opened it. Anna had left her bed and was kneeling, dressed in her robe, in front of her nightstand with her back to the door. She was facing two photographs: Helena at her graduation; and the old village priest.

‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned …' She turned around, still clutching her rosary beads.

Josef saw tears staining her cheeks and had to fight to keep his own emotions under control. ‘You didn't tell Helena the truth?'

‘What do you mean?' She refused to meet his eyes.

‘I have just seen her. She is sad, upset, but not devastated. The truth would have broken a sensitive girl like her.'

‘What do you know about the truth?' Anna asked in alarm.

‘I know that her father was one of a gang of German soldiers that raped you and your sister Matylda.'

‘The priest told you?' Anna's face suddenly drained of colour.

Josef shook his head. ‘I overheard the two of you talking one night shortly before he died. I couldn't help it. I had made him tea. I was bringing it to him in the yard but you were sitting with him, crying. I crept away before either of you saw me.'

‘If I'd told Helena about her real father, I'd burden her with all the misery, guilt and anger that has blighted my own life.' Anna's lips were as white as her cheeks. ‘I intended to tell her everything, but the look on her face when she heard how the beasts had treated Matylda was enough. I knew then that the truth would destroy her, just as surely as those soldiers destroyed Matylda's life and mine.

‘So you told her she was Jerzy Leman's illegitimate daughter?'

Anna shook her head. ‘No. If I'd done that she would have gone looking for Jerzy's relatives, and old Henryk was his uncle. I wanted to spare Helena pain, but not at the expense of giving Henryk false hope that a member of his family had survived.'

‘So what did you tell her?'

‘A lie.' She leaned against the bed. ‘It's easy for me to lie and act the coward. I have done it all my life.'

‘Anna …'

‘You are like the priest. Always looking for good in every situation. But there is no good to be found in some things, only evil. When I discovered I was pregnant I went to the priest. He told me that my child was a gift from God, an innocent baby who deserved life. And God had given me a way to respectability of sorts for me and my child. Jerzy was dead, but he had loved me. And everyone would assume the child was his. I even remember his exact words: “A child can only bring comfort.Ë® And the thought of their family living on through Jerzy's child did comfort his parents before they were killed. So I did not suffer as Matylda did. When her young man was told what had happened to her he wrote her a letter. She opened it, hoping for sympathy. But he told her that he never wanted to see or touch her again. I will never forget the look on Matylda' s face when she read that letter, and I saw that same look again on Helena's face today when I told her about the rape. I couldn't tell her the truth, so I invented a German. A philanderer who fooled me into making me love him and deserted me when I was pregnant. I didn't give him a real name, a death or a grave because I didn't want her to go looking for him, too. You are a priest, Josef …

‘Only what passes for one in this backwater. And you are my foster-mother.'

‘I have to do penance for my sins.'

‘You don't remember what the old priest told you that night in the yard, the night I listened in?'

Anna stared at him with anguished eyes.

‘It is time to stop doing penance, Anna. The sin wasn't yours, yet you have punished yourself for it all your life.'

‘But my child –'

‘I am your child, Anna. You gave the child you bore the best gift you could have at the time: a new life in a country of opportunity with a mother who loved her.'

‘Sometimes I have trouble believing that you are not the old priest's son. You are so like him.'

Josef gently took the beads from Anna's hand and helped her to her feet. ‘Enough punishment, Anna. It is time to start living the rest of your life in peace.'

‘What's left of it.'

‘You have years in front of you.' He guided her back into bed.

‘I wish I could believe it.' She grasped his hand. ‘You love her.'

‘I do.' He kissed her cheek.

‘What are you going to do about it?'

He smiled wistfully. ‘I don't know yet.'

If Helena hadn't been so preoccupied with thoughts of Anna, she would have enjoyed the novelty of driving out in a horse and trap. The sun beat down relentlessly, and the countryside basked in the midday heat. The air was still, heavy, the only movement the bees and butterflies as they hovered around the immature fruits that hung from the trees lining the road.

The fields stretched on either side, their crops creating a patchwork of light and dark greens interspersed with gold as far as the eye could see. Helena gazed over them as she sat bolt upright on the bench seat next to Josef. She gripped the side of the trap to steady herself, as he tried to rein in the horse and urge it on at the same time.

‘I never was as good a horseman as the farmers' sons because I wasn't able to practise,' he apologised. ‘When I was twelve I asked Anna to buy me a pony; instead she managed to get me a bicycle. Our milkman has a young and an old horse. I would have preferred the old, she's slower but steadier, but he alternates them on his round. This one is only half-trained, and too frisky for me. Horses always sense an amateur driver.'

‘It's quicker than walking,' Helena commented for the sake of conversation.

‘Don't you think the road looks different from the way it appears at night?'

‘Not particularly.'

‘There are no frightening shadows or noises to scare you.'

‘I wasn't frightened the last time I walked here,' she lied.

‘No?'

‘No,' she repeated, glancing at him.

‘Helena …' His tone was serious.

‘That's the farm ahead, isn't it?' she interrupted.

‘Yes.'

She picked up her duffle bag. ‘If Wiktor won't let me near the house, will you talk to him for me?'

‘As we agreed.' Josef heaved on the reins, halted the trap, jumped down and tied the horse to the gate. ‘As long as Wiktor remains polite.' He held out his hand to help her down. She took it.

‘Thank you. Josef.'

‘But if he has been drinking, we leave. No arguments; we go immediately,' he emphasized. ‘Understood?'

‘Understood,' she echoed.

Julianna was cleaning out the hen house when Josef and Helena walked into the yard. Alerted by their footsteps, she turned, saw them, and rushed out of the chicken run, only remembering to fasten the gate as an afterthought.

Josef said, ‘We're looking for Wiktor, Julianna.'

She pointed to the cowshed before darting into the house. ‘So much for Julianna,' Josef muttered under his breath.

‘She's shy, and having a brother like Wiktor doesn't help.' Hoping to keep her canvas shoes clean, Helena picked her way carefully across the yard. It was odorous but cool in the stone-built cowshed. The only light came from two narrow iron gratings, one above the door and another opposite the stalls. Helena and Josef heard Wiktor's voice interspersed with lowing as they entered. When their eyes became accustomed to the gloom, they saw him standing beside a cow in a stall at the far end. They walked towards him, their footsteps resounding over the stone floor, but Wiktor didn't look up or away from the cow.

‘Hello, Wiktor.' Josef stopped in front of the stall. ‘Fine-looking heifer you have there.'

‘She's about to calve, that's why I brought her in here,' Wiktor said gruffly. ‘What do you want? And why have you brought the –'

‘Helena.'

Wiktor sneered. ‘Don't you mean the piece of rubbish that Magda picked up in Nazi Germany?'

‘No …'

Helena gave Josef a warning prod, and tried to visualize Wiktor as the amusing young man Anna had described: the tease who had fastened girls' braids to the back of a cart, the boy who couldn't watch a runt die of starvation, so hid it in his room. But it was no use. She couldn't equate the bitter, red-faced, hard-featured, middle-aged drunk with the young boy Anna had spoken of.

She glanced sideways at Josef. He nodded briefly. From somewhere she summoned the courage to speak. ‘I'm here, Mr Niklas, because I'd like to give your mother and sister keepsakes.'

‘What kind of keepsakes?' Wiktor peered at her, greed in his eyes. She recalled both Weronika and Anna saying that he had ransacked the Janek house after the massacre.

‘Magda always wore a locket –'

‘A solid gold locket that Adam Janek gave her when Helena was born. There was a picture of him inside it.'

Helena opened her duffle bag and drew out the box of photo­ graphs. She opened it and lifted out the locket and Magda's wedding ring.

Wiktor moved away from the cow and took the locket from her.

She pointed to the side. ‘You press the button there to open it.'

‘I remember.' He touched the catch and it flew open. ‘You want to give this to my mother?'

‘No, to Julianna.'

‘The gold will be wasted on her. She never goes anywhere.'