The Winter Guest (5 page)

Helena opened the door and peered inside. The air was thick with the scent of moldy wood and damp earth. She had not been here in years and the structure had deteriorated further with time. The floor had rotted to a few remaining planks over dirt and much of the roof had peeled away, revealing the gray sky above.

Helena turned back to help the man through the doorway, propping him against the nearest wall. Her hand brushed against something hard at his waist and she pulled back his shirt to reveal a pistol that had somehow survived his ordeal. She did not know why she was surprised—he was a soldier, after all. For a moment, she considered taking it, then decided to leave him his one defense, if it even still worked. She ran her hands over his torso, feeling for other injuries, not sure what she would do if she found any. Then she pulled her hands back, wondering if he minded the intimacy of her stranger’s touch. But he lay with his eyes closed, still laboring to breathe.

She shivered, not entirely sure it was from the cold. There was something exciting and dangerous about him that made her take a step backward, that made her want to run and yet unable to look away at the same time. She peered in her satchel, pulling out the small loaf of bread she had tried to feed to her mother and placing it on the ground beside him. He needed a fire, but there was no wood and nothing else to burn.

“I’ll get help,” she offered. But even before he shook his head she knew that it was impossible. There was no one to be trusted and telling anyone would only put them both in danger. She looked around desperately. There was nothing more she could do for him here, and if she waited longer it would be dark and she would be unable to make the rest of the trip home.

She started to stand and he clung to the hem of her skirt in a way that might have been improper if he’d had the strength to mean it.
Don’t go,
the helpless look in his eyes seemed to say. She took his hand from her dress and placed it back on his chest, struck by the warmth of his fingers, and the strong muscle beneath the torn uniform. “I’ll be back,” she promised. And then she turned on her heel and ran.

4

“I’m going to see Mama again today,” Helena announced two days later as she fed breakfast to Karolina. She held a spoonful of coarse oat cereal suspended midair a few inches short of the baby’s open mouth, watching for Ruth’s reaction.

Ruth stopped dressing Dorie, the skirt stuck awkwardly over the child’s head. “Why? Is she worse?”

“She’s fine.” Helena immediately recognized the lack of truth in her response. “Fine” would have meant Mama recognizing her own daughter or chewing a mouthful of bread. Helena didn’t like to lie.

But Ruth tended to view the world as she wanted to see it. “When Mama comes back...” she would often say. At first Helena had wanted to correct her—how could she possibly believe that would ever happen? Denial was Ruth’s means of survival, though, and there was no harm in pretending as long as she didn’t rely on it. So Helena sometimes spared her from the worst.

“Me!” Karolina squawked, grabbing the spoon. As the child tried to feed herself, Helena considered telling Ruth about the soldier she had found. Ruth was better with salves and bandages and such, and she might have some other ways they could help the man. But something stopped her.

“Her doctor wasn’t there last time and I wanted to ask him about her medicine,” Helena added instead, stretching the story. She had never gone to see Mama more than once a week before. Surely Ruth would see through the lie. But Ruth just yanked the skirt over Dorie’s head, then sat the child in the chair to braid her hair, which had more than a hint of red to it, without reaction.

Helena took the spoon back from Karolina and scraped a last spoonful of cereal for her. “Drink your milk,” she said, more sternly than she intended. Waste could not be tolerated, even by the children.

“Mook,” Karolina offered. She had been a quiet baby for so long they had fretted something might be wrong, a deficit caused perhaps by the trauma of her parents’ disappearance. But she had begun speaking a few months earlier, gathering new words each day and trying them on for size. She took a sip from her cup, then smiled brightly, searching her sister’s face for praise. She was, like Ruth, too dependent on the approval of others—approval that seldom came anymore for any of them.

Helena looked across the crude wooden table at Michal, who had finished eating and now rested his chin on his hands, staring into the space. None of the children played during meals as she and Ruth had in happier times, giggling and whispering until their parents would scold them. Rather, they sat and ate gravely, as though they realized the scarcity of food and were unwilling to take it for granted.

The wind blew more strongly today than it had in months, howling around the house like a wolf looking for an entry point. Helena’s thoughts shifted to the soldier, alone in the cold, damp chapel. She had helped him without thinking, the same instinct that had prompted her to bring home a wounded squirrel she’d found as a child. Though his ripped uniform had not born any markings, she suspected that he was American, or perhaps British. Her heart skipped as she remembered the bit of pale flesh that she had glimpsed through the fabric. Enough, she admonished herself. This was not a schoolgirl’s crush, like Ruth always seemed to have on various boys when they were younger—this was about the soldier’s survival. Was he in pain? Was he even still alive? Helena had wanted to get away sooner to check on him. But Karolina had come down with a brief, soaring fever the night she’d returned, and Ruth couldn’t handle the three children alone when one was sick.

What if she didn’t go back to the chapel? She had brought the soldier to safety, and surely that was as much as anyone could expect from her. Anything else would put their family in danger. But he was already dependent on her, and without her help he would die of cold or starvation or something worse.

Across the table, Michal’s hazel eyes met hers. He had been born with wisdom beyond his years and had never gone through a childish phase. Though she did not believe in such things, it sometimes seemed as though he was an old soul who had seen all of this a thousand times before, and his understanding of the world made him somber. The day she’d almost taken the leaving path, Michal had peered at her deeply when she returned, as if aware of her near-transgression. He was staring at Helena now in a way that made her wonder if he had read her mind and knew about the soldier at the church. But of course, that was impossible.

She reached across the table and put her hand on his. He looked up, surprised at her rare display of affection. Perhaps more so than the girls, it was Michal to whom she was closest and had tried to shield. It had not always been that way—at first, she’d hated him. “A boy,” Tata had announced the day Michal was born, his face beaming with pride. Then six, Helena looked at the tiny infant with a mix of resentment and love. He would grow into the son who would take her place as their father’s favorite. Over the years, she had fought to stay stronger and more useful, always a step ahead, even as Michal grew taller.

One morning when she was twelve, she’d awakened to a squawk of dismay as Tata pulled her six-year-old brother from his bed for his first hunting trip. Jealousy nagged at her—before Michal, it had been she who had accompanied Tata on his dark forays into the cold woods to set traps and shoot deer. Now he had his son. But Michal sat on the floor, skin white and eyes wide as their father tugged at his collar, trying to force him to his feet. Michal looked up at her imploringly. He had always loved animals, had all but stopped eating meat as a child once he’d realized where it came from. Tata loomed over him, unwilling to be dissuaded. “Come,” she said, helping Michal to dress. Tata did not object when she tagged along, holding her brother’s hand as they trudged wordlessly through the dark, still woods.

There was nothing to be caught that day. When they had returned home, Tata stomped into the barn and emerged holding a flailing chicken by the neck. “Kill it,” he instructed Michal, unwilling to be placated until the lesson was complete. The boy stood back, trembling. Several seconds passed. “Do it.” Tears streamed down Michal’s cheeks.

Helena stepped forward and grabbed the chicken from her father, snapping its neck beneath the warm feathers with one swift movement. Her eyes met Tata’s defiantly and for a moment she feared he was going to return to the barn to get another chicken, their last, for Michal to kill. But he had simply walked away. “Come,” she’d said again to her brother. Together they went to clean the bird, Helena gently but persistently showing him how to remove the feathers and separate the bones.

It was perhaps hardest on him now, Helena reflected as the memory cleared. Michal was old enough to remember faint glimpses of the happiness that had once been theirs, not like Dorie and Karolina, who didn’t know what they had missed. But he had been too young to understand why it had all gone away, leaving him alone in a house full of girls.

“Here.” Helena pushed the rest of her bread toward him, trying to ignore her stomach, which grumbled in protest. As she did, she noticed a stain on her sleeve left by spilled milk and cereal.

Michal hesitated, then devoured the bread in two bites, hardly bothering to chew. “May I be excused?”

“No,” said Ruth.

“Yes,” said Helena in near-unison, their voices clashing against each other. They looked at each other uneasily. It was a tacit understanding that, despite their differences, they would not disagree in front of the children. For all of the hard times, she could not recall her parents quarreling, at least not when they thought the children could hear, and she and Ruth had tried to maintain that unified front. But the sisters seemed to differ more of late, their opposition laid bare for the children to see.

“Yes,” Ruth relented quickly. “Check on the animals, will you?”

“Come on, Dorie,” Michal said, holding out his hand.

Dorie followed him, her gait stilted. Her right leg had grown more slowly and was now an inch shorter than her left, causing her to her limp. “It will even out,” Mama had predicted optimistically when Dorie had started walking and the problem first became apparent. But the difference had become more pronounced with time.

Last spring, Helena had cut down a block of wood and affixed it to Dorie’s right shoe to compensate. It worked, and the limp had been all but gone when she had worn it. But a day later, Dorie had pulled the wood from her shoe. “It just doesn’t feel right.” Around the house, her limp had become so much a part of things they scarcely noticed it. As Helena watched Dorie hobble now along Michal’s long, foal-like gait, she seemed so vulnerable.

Michal and Dorie bounded through the door, spurred by the brisk morning air, their two heads bobbing auburn. Helena opened the shutters to let in the light. Ruth kept the children immaculate, Helena conceded inwardly. Their clothes were not torn or stained, the darned bits hidden so well they could scarcely be seen. She brushed their teeth with baking soda each night, insisted that their baths be thorough. Helena sometimes wondered why she bothered when they so seldom saw anyone but one another.

Outside the children ran in circles, Michal pretending to exert himself but really going much slower than he might have, allowing Dorie to catch him and feel that she was doing well. They chased a chipmunk around the yard, nearly colliding into the dwindling woodpile as the animal ducked beneath. Watching them play together, Helena was flooded with pride—despite their thinness and simple clothing, there was a light about them, a kind of strength other children did not possess. And they had a way of instinctively protecting each other, always had, even before they could walk or speak.

Was it different for them somehow because they weren’t twins? Helena wondered. With her and Ruth, it had always been a competition, who had spoken first (Ruth) and walked first (Helena), and later who was prettier, smarter, could sew or cook better. But it wasn’t any easier having older or younger siblings, she supposed, someone always ahead of you in the queue or behind in the scramble for food or attention. It was the plight of being one of many. Big families were the norm in these parts, even families like their own that could ill-afford them.

As the children disappeared into the barn, she smiled at Michal’s awkwardness, the way he had not quite grown into the long legs and broad shoulders he’d inherited from their father. “I heard something at market the other day,” Ruth said in a hushed tone, even though only little Karolina was there to hear them. Helena’s breath caught. Had Ruth learned—or somehow guessed—about the soldier? Guilt nagged at her suddenly. Until now, she always told Ruth everything. Yet this time something had held her back. It was as if, by discovering the man in the woods, she had taken a step apart from her siblings.

Helena licked her lips. “What is it?”

“The Garzels disappeared—Pani Kowalska said maybe they were arrested.”

Helena’s brow arched. “She said that?”

Ruth bristled. “Well, she didn’t exactly say it, but she suggested that was the case.”

Helena waved her hand dismissively. “Just silly gossip from an old woman with too much time on her hands.”

Ruth tried again. “She said that they arrested the Jews in Nowy S˛acz, too. People couldn’t make up such awful things from whole cloth, could they? There must be some truth to it.” She sounded as if she really needed Helena to believe her.

“Perhaps,” Helena said, trying to take the idea seriously. She started to lift Karolina down from the chair before she began to fuss, demanding to climb down herself.

“Here,” Helena said, relenting and letting her do it, but keeping a protective hand close behind. Karolina looked at her in disbelief—it was Ruth, not Helena, who usually gave in. But the child’s smile, so rare these days, was reward enough. Karolina scampered down. She had always shown physical prowess beyond the others, rolling over at three months and walking at nine months, almost as if she knew that the world was testing her, and despite her small size she would need to get around on her own two feet. Helena checked her forehead and noted with relief that her skin was now cool to the touch, then released her to play on the floor.

“People wouldn’t stand for it,” she replied to Ruth, resuming their conversation in that fractured way that happened frequently while they were caring for the children. A lack of confidence eroded her voice. In fact, the war had stripped away so many civilities, given people a license to act on their deeper, baser selves. Many, she suspected with an uneasy feeling, would be only too happy to let the Germans get rid of not just Jews but neighbors they had never really wanted in the first place.

Helena’s eyes traveled to the corner by the fireplace, where the scarf Ruth had knitted for Piotr still lay crumpled in a ball, untouched though months had passed. She kicked it out of the way, hoping Ruth had not seen. Anger rose within her as she thought of the boy who had broken her sister’s heart. “He’s not worth it,” she had wanted to say many times since Piotr last had come. But she held back, knowing such sentiments would only bring Ruth more pain.

Helena gestured to Karolina’s thick hair, which Ruth had cowed earlier into two luminous pigtails. Karolina was the outlier in their auburn-haired cluster—thick locks the color of cornstalks made her shine like the sun. “Do mine next?” she asked.

“Really?” Ruth’s brow lifted. Helena held her breath, wondering if she’d gone too far. She’d never had the patience to sit, instead pulling her hair into a scraggly knot at the back of her neck. She worried that this, coupled with her announcement of an extra visit to their mother, might arouse Ruth’s suspicion. But Ruth just shrugged. “Sit down.” Helena dropped into the chair. Ruth’s touch was gentle, her movements soothing as she coaxed the stubborn wisps into place with deft fingers. Helena fought the urge to fidget—it was all she could do not to leap from the chair and run out the door into the forest.

“Mischa needs shoes,” she announced grimly when Ruth had finished braiding. Ruth’s brow wrinkled. For the girls, there was always an old pair to be handed down, but Michal would not be big enough to wear Tata’s boots for at least another year or two, and there was no money for new ones. “What about your knitting? You could sell some pieces.”