Читать книгу The Winter Guest - Pam Jenoff - Страница 14

5

The sun was dropping low to the trees later that afternoon as Helena neared the chapel and pushed open the door. “Dzie´n dobry...?” she called into the dank semidarkness. Silence greeted her. Surely the soldier could not have fled in his condition. For a second, she wondered if she’d imagined him. He could be dead, she thought with more dismay than she should have felt for someone she’d only met once. His wounds had seemed serious enough.

She pulled back the shutter that covered one of the broken windows to allow the pale light to filter in. The soldier was curled up in a tight ball on the ground, much as he had been when she found him, but farther from the door. She hesitated as excitement and alarm rose in her. What was she thinking by coming here? She didn’t know this man, or whether he was here to help or do harm.

Helena walked over and knelt to feel his cheek, caught off guard by the softness of his skin. She was relieved to find he was still warm. Then she remembered Karolina’s illness, barely passed. Had she made a mistake by coming and possibly bringing sickness to this man in his already-weakened state?

The soldier moved suddenly beneath her hand and she jumped. His eyes snapped open. He stiffened, almost as Mama had when she feared pain in the hospital.

“It’s okay,” Helena said, holding her hands low and open. “I’m the one who brought you here.”

He forced himself to a sitting position, trying without success to stifle a whimper. “Who are you?” His Polish was stiff and a bit accented.

“I’m called Helena. I live close to the village. You should rest,” she added.

But he sat even straighter, clenching and unclenching his hands. His chocolate eyes, set just a shade too close together, darted back and forth. “Does anyone else know that I’m here?”

“Not that I’m aware,” she replied quickly. “I haven’t told anyone.” She wanted to say that someone else might have heard the crash, but it seemed unwise to upset him more.

He stared at her, disbelieving. “Are you sure?”

“I haven’t told anyone,” she repeated, suddenly annoyed. “Why would I have gone to all of the trouble to save you just to turn you in?”

He shrugged, somewhat calmer now. “A reward, maybe. Who knows why people do anything these days?”

“No one knows that you’re here,” she replied, her voice soothing.

“Where is ‘here’ exactly?” he asked.

“Southern Poland, Małopolska. You’re about twenty kilometers from the city.”

“Kraków?” Helena nodded, sensing from his expression that her answer was not what he expected. “That puts us about an hour from the southern border, doesn’t it?”

“Roughly, yes. Perhaps a bit more.”

His face relaxed slightly. “You’re real.” She cocked her head. “I thought I might have been delirious and dreamed you. And then I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”

“I’m sorry,” she replied quickly. “It’s hard to get away.” He had rugged features, an uneven nose and a chin that jutted forth defiantly. But his eyelashes were longer than she knew a man could have, and there was a softness to his gaze that kept him from being too intimidating.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” the man added. “Just that I’m glad to see you again.” A warm flush seemed to wash over her then, and she could feel her cheeks color. “I don’t think I introduced myself properly. Sam Rosen.” He held out his hand. “I’m American.” His deep voice had a lyrical quality to it, the words nearly a song.

“But you’re speaking Polish.”

“Yes, my grandparents were from one of those eastern parts by the border that was Poland when it wasn’t Russia. They used to speak Polish with my mother when they didn’t want the children to understand what they were saying. So I had a reason to try to figure it out.” The corners of his mouth rose with amusement.

She shook his outstretched hand awkwardly. He had wiped the blood from his face, she noticed, leaving a narrow gash across his forehead. “You’re looking better,” she remarked, meaning it. There was a ruddiness to his complexion that had not been there before. His hair was darker than she remembered it, almost black. A healed scar ran pale and deep from the right corner of his mouth to his chin.

“Thanks to you,” he replied, his eyes warm. “Bringing me here saved my life. And the food you left did me a world of good.” He made it sound as though she had left him an entire feast and not just a handful of bread.

“A bit more,” she said, passing him another piece of bread, slightly larger. His fingers brushed against her own, coarse and unfamiliar. “I’m sorry that’s all I could manage.” She could not take any of the scarce sheep’s cheese or lard they needed for the children.

“You’re very kind.” His voice was full with gratitude. He tore into the bread with an urgency that suggested true hunger. Of course, the morsel she’d left him last time would not have lasted a day, once he was able to eat. She noticed then a pile of leaves—he must have dragged himself outside to forage. “They taught us in training which things we could eat, roots and such. And I’ve managed to drink some rainwater.” He gestured across the chapel to a puddle that had formed where it had rained through the opening in the roof. “I’m sorry not to get up,” he added. “My leg is still a mess. But I don’t think it needs to be set.”

She looked around the chapel—the wooden pews had rotted to the floor and there was no sign of any pulpit, but fine engravings were still visible on the walls, faded images of angels and the Virgin Mary at the front. “It’s a good thing I found you,” she said, sounding more pleased with herself than she intended. “The path is just off the main road. Someone else might have turned you in to the police for favors or food.”

“What about animals?” he asked. “Are there wolves?”

She hesitated. “Yes.” His eyes widened. She did not want to alarm him, but other than sparing Ruth the occasional bit of reality, it was not in Helena’s nature to lie. Once the wild animals had clung to the high hills, content to feed on small prey. But with food sources growing scarce, they’d become bolder, venturing down to the outskirts of the village to steal livestock.

“Here.” Helena opened her bag. She had looked around the hospital ward while visiting her mother earlier, searching for whatever supplies she could take to help him. There had only been a few rags and a small bottle of alcohol lying on one of the nurse’s carts and she didn’t dare to risk looking in the supply closet or any of the cupboards. She handed the bottle to him. “I brought you these, too.” She pulled out the wool coat and thick gray sweater that had been her father’s. Sam took the sweater and put it on, swimming in its massive girth. She hoped he could not detect the smell of liquor that lingered, even after it had been washed.

“Thank you. My jacket must have been stripped off with the parachute. It’s probably hanging from a tree somewhere.”

So he had fallen from the sky, after all. “So you jumped?”

He nodded. “Before the plane crashed. The weather forced us to fly farther north than we should have, I think, and the pilot had to go off course. At first we received orders to turn back, but we had all agreed that we were too far gone for that—we wanted to see the mission through. Then something went wrong with the plane. We knew we were going to have to wild jump, that means just land anywhere, as well as we could.” She imagined it, leaping from the plane in darkness and mist, not knowing what lay below. “I wasn’t sure my chute was going to have time to open. It did, but I got caught in a tree. When I was trying to free my chute, I fell from the tree and, well...” He gestured to his leg. “The rest you know.”

Sam opened the bottle and doused the cloth, then pressed it against the gash on his forehead, grimacing. He shivered and there was a sudden air of vulnerability about him, as though all of the foreign bits had been stripped away.

“I’ll be right back,” she announced. Before he could respond, Helena rushed outside to the grassy patch above the chapel, collecting an armful of sticks to make a fire. She stopped abruptly. What was she doing coming to the woods to tend to this stranger, risking discovery at any moment? Caretaking had never been in her nature. It was Ruth who nurtured the others, Michal that cared for small, hurt animals. And she had her family’s well-being to think about. She had done enough, too much, her sister would surely say.

Helena eyed the path back toward the village. She could just turn and go, now. But then she remembered the gratitude in the soldier’s eyes as he had taken the food from her. She was his only hope. If the Germans came, though, she would be arrested, leaving her family helpless. She had to think of them first. One had to be practical in order to survive in these times. She would build the soldier a fire before going and that was all.

She returned with her armful of kindling, which she carried to the small stove in the corner. He frowned. “It isn’t right, you hauling wood for me.”

Helena fought the urge to laugh. She carried enough wood to keep her family warm—the small pile of kindling was nothing. Still, she was touched by his concern. “It’s fine.” The wood was too damp, she fretted as she broke it into pieces. But when she struck the match she’d brought from home and touched it to the pile, it began to burn merrily.

“Thank you,” Sam said, sliding closer along the floor as she closed the grate. The tiny flames seemed to make his dark eyes dance. He winced.

“Is it very painful?” she asked.

“It isn’t so bad when I’m still, but when I move, it’s awful.”

“Let me.” She walked to him and slowly helped him inch closer to the fire, letting him lean on her for support, feeling his muscles strain with the effort of each movement.

“There is one other thing...” He hesitated. “I’m so sorry to ask, but I’d like to wash if that’s somehow possible.” She’d noticed it earlier, his own masculine earthy scent, stronger than it had been last time she was here. “Perhaps some water?”

“Let me see what I can find.” Helena went back outside to where she had seen a rusty bucket lying by the drain. She picked up the bucket and walked uphill several meters to the stream. She moved slowly on her return, taking care not to spill. “It’s cold,” she cautioned as Sam took it from her, his hand brushing hers.

He cupped his hand and drank from the bucket hurriedly. Then he splashed the water on his face, not seeming to mind as the icy droplets trickled down his neck. “That feels great.”

He pulled off the sweater and unbuttoned his shirt. She blushed and half turned away; out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of his back where it met his shoulder, muscle and bone working against the bare, pale skin as he bathed. She sucked in her breath quickly, then held it, hoping he hadn’t heard.

Her heart hammered against her ribs. “Pan Rosen...” she began, lowering herself to the ground as he dried himself with his torn shirt.

“Sam,” he corrected. Sam. In that moment, he was not a soldier, but a man, with an open face and broad smooth cheeks she wanted to touch. He pulled on the sweater she had given him once more. “And may I call you Hel...” He faltered.

“Helena,” she prompted.

“Helena,” he repeated, as if trying it on for size. “That’s quite a mouthful. May I call you Lena?”

“Y-yes,” she replied, caught off guard. All of the other children had pet names, Ruti, Mischa—but she had always been Helena.

“Lena,” he said again, a slight smile playing at the corners of his lips. His shoulders were broad, forearms strong. Sitting beside him, she felt oddly small and delicate.

She struggled to remember what she wanted to say. “What are you doing here, Sam? Are the Americans coming to help us?”

“No.” Her heart sank. The talk of the Americans entering the war had been growing in recent months, whispered everywhere from the hospital corridors to the market in the town square. And if the Americans weren’t coming yet, then what was he doing here? “That is, I mean...” He broke off. “I really can’t say too much,” he added apologetically. Then he frowned again. “You must be taking a terrible risk coming here.”

Not really, she wanted to say, but that would be untrue. “Everything is dangerous now,” she replied instead. In truth, finding him was the most exciting thing that had happened to her in years, maybe ever, and she had been eager to return. “Especially going to see my mother.” She told him then about sneaking in and out of Kraków, her near-encounter with the jeep. “Of course, if not for the German I would never have come this way and found you.” She could feel herself blush again.

He did not seem to notice, though, but continued staring at her, his brow crinkled. “I wish you wouldn’t go to the city again.”

Helena was touched by his concern, more than she might have expected from a man she just met. “That’s what my...” She stopped herself from telling him about Ruth, the fact that she had a twin. She did not want to acknowledge her prettier sister. “There are five children in the family, including me. I’m the one who has to go check on Mama. My father is gone and there’s no one else to make sure she’s cared for.”

Helena’s thoughts turned to her mother. She’d actually seemed better today. For once she’d been awake and hadn’t mistaken Helena for her sister. And she had reached for the bread that Helena offered. For a second, Helena had hesitated; she had hoped to keep the extra food for the soldier. She was overcome with shame and had quickly broken the bread and moistened it. “Pani Kasia says that they’re going to kill us,” Mama had announced abruptly as she chewed, gesturing to the woman in the bed next to hers. She had an unworried, slightly gossipy tone as though discussing the latest rumor about one of the neighbors back home.

Inwardly, Helena had blanched. She had worked so hard to shield Mama from the outside world. But the hospital was a porous place and news seeped through the cracks. “She’s a crazy old woman,” Helena replied carefully in a low voice. For months she had done her best to keep the truth from her mother without actually lying to her, and she didn’t want to cross that line now.

“And sour to boot,” Mama added, smiling faintly. There was a flicker of clarity to her eyes and for a second Helena glimpsed the mother of old, the one who had baked sweet cakes and rubbed their feet on frigid winter nights. There were so many things she wanted to ask her mother about her childhood and the past and what her hopes and dreams had been.

“Mama...” She turned back, then stopped. Her mother was staring out the window, once more the cloud pulled down over her face like a veil, and Helena knew that she was gone and could not be reached.

“It’s so brave of you to make that journey every week,” Sam said, drawing her from her thoughts. His voice was full with admiration.

“Brave?” She was unaccustomed to thinking of herself that way. “You’re the brave one, leaving your family to come all the way over here.”

“That’s different,” he replied, and a shadow seemed to pass across his face.

“How old are you, anyway?” she asked, hearing her sister’s phantom admonition that the question was too blunt.

“Eighteen.”

“Same as me,” she marveled.

“Almost nineteen. I enlisted the day after my birthday.”

“Did you always want to be a soldier?”

“No.” His face clouded over. “But I had to come.”

“Why?”

He bit his lip, not answering. Then he lifted his shoulders, straightening. “When I joined the army, they sent me to school in Georgia, that’s in the southern part of the United States, for nearly a year. I had to learn to be a soldier, you see, and then how to be a paratrooper.”

Helena processed the information. She had never thought about someone becoming a soldier; it seemed like they were already that way. But now she pictured it, Sam donning his uniform and getting his hair cut short. “Is that why it’s taking so long for the Americans to come?” It came out sounding wrong, as though she was holding him personally responsible for his country.

But he seemed to understand what she meant. “In part, yes.” His brow wrinkled. “Some people don’t want us to enter the war at all.” How could the Americans not help? Helena wanted to ask. Sam continued, “Everyone has to be trained, they have to plan the missions...” He paused. “I probably shouldn’t say too much. It’s nothing personal,” he hastened to add. “I’m not supposed to talk about it with anyone.”

“I understand.” But the moment hung heavy between them. She was a Pole and not to be trusted.

“They don’t know,” he explained earnestly. “I mean, the American people know about Hitler, of course, and the Jews there are concerned for their relatives, trying to get them out. Until I came to Europe, I had no idea...” He stopped abruptly.

“No idea about what?”

Sam bit his lip. “Nothing.” Helena could tell from his voice that there were things that she, even in the middle of it all, had not seen. Things he would not share with her. “Anyway, our rabbi back home said that—”

“You’re Jewish?” she interrupted. He nodded. She was surprised—he didn’t look anything like the Jews she’d seen in the city, shawl covered and stooped. But there was something unmistakably different about him, a slight arch to his nose, chin just a shade sharper than the people around here. His dark hair was curly and so thick it seemed that water could not penetrate it. “You don’t look it,” she blurted. Her face flushed. “That is, the Jews around here...”

He smiled, not offended. “There are different kinds of Jews. Some, like the Orthodox, are more observant than others, and they dress differently.”

That was not quite what Helena had meant, but she was grateful to let it be. Thinking of the empty streets and shuttered shops of Kazimierz, and what the nurse had told her about the ghetto and her sister about the Jews of Nowy S˛acz, she was suddenly nervous for him. Not just a foreigner, but a Jew. The full danger of his situation crashed down upon her. “Did they make you come?”

“No, I volunteered.” He cleared his throat. “That is, the kind of work I do...” She wanted to ask what that was exactly, but she knew he wouldn’t say. “It’s a really big honor and I raised my hand to be considered. At first they said no—they were worried that being Jewish I might let emotions get in the way.” His face was open and honest in a way that she liked, as if he could not hide a single feeling. So unlike here, where everyone kept their eyes low to avoid trouble. “Are you Catholic?”

Helena nodded, picturing the worn old rosary Mama kept in her bed stand drawer, even at the hospital. She had insisted on dressing the children in their best clothes and going to Mass each Sunday. Helena always dreaded the stares of the other villagers, wondering where their father was, speculating that he was sleeping off another night of drinking. After Mama got sick and had gone to the sanatorium, Ruth had stubbornly persisted in herding the children to church. But then their better clothes became too small and threadbare to wear and after Tata died they stopped going altogether. “Everyone is here, more or less.”

He did not speak further, but stared off into the distance. “What are you going to do now?” she asked finally.

He paused. “I don’t know. Stay here for now, I guess. I don’t have much choice with this leg.” He finished the bread and looked at her with a serious expression. “When you found me, was there any sign of anyone else?”

She shook her head. “No one. You were by yourself in the woods. No other people, no plane. And the night before, when I heard the crash, I never saw anything.” She did not have the heart to tell him about the force with which the crash had shaken their house, making the likelihood that anyone else had survived virtually nil.

“No, you wouldn’t have. We flew in low with lights down. It was an engine problem, I think, maybe birds, that got us—not the Germans.” The distinction seemed to matter to him a great deal. “The plane was too low for our chutes to open properly. I doubt the others were as lucky.” Pain washed over his face. His own injuries had been awful, but surely his fellow soldiers had suffered worse. She was seized with the urge to put her arms around him and comfort him, as Ruth might Dorie when she scraped a knee. But offering comfort did not come naturally to Helena and she stopped, caught off guard by the unfamiliar impulse.

He cleared his throat and took her hand in his. “You cut yourself.” The spot where she had caught her hand on the thorny bush while fleeing had reopened from the cold, dry air.

She pulled back sharply. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“It isn’t that.” She was ashamed of the rough calluses, the places where her knuckles had split from chopping wood. Ruth always scolded her to take care of her hands. She kept her own soft by wearing an old pair of Tata’s work gloves as she washed and cleaned, rubbing lanolin into her palms and pushing back her cuticles. Ruth took time to do the little things, as though it still mattered and there were young men looking for wives and not that Piotr, her last best hope, had disappeared into the abyss. For once Helena wished that she had listened.

“May I?” He reached out once more. Helena nodded, then extended her hand, allowing him to cradle it in the warmth of his own. He examined it carefully. She felt silly having him worrying about such a little cut, when he was so much more seriously wounded. He dropped her hand and she wondered if he was repulsed by its coarseness. But he reached in his pocket and pulled out a small tube, uncapped it. “It’s a salve,” he explained as he squeezed some into his palm. “Hard to believe that I lost almost everything but managed to keep this.”

“Plus your flashlight and your gun,” she replied pointedly.

He blinked with surprise. “Yeah, that, too.” A moment of awkward distrust passed between them, then evaporated. He took her hand in his own once more, sending shivers of unfamiliar warmth through her as he rubbed the lotion into her skin.

She pulled away again. “I can do it.”

“Of course.” Sam held out the tube. He had strong wrists, flat on top with a few dark hairs curling toward the backs of his hands. She was suddenly mindful of her thick stockings, the darning where they had torn at the knee impossible to conceal.

She finished rubbing in the lotion, studying him more closely now. “Your scar—is it from the war?”

“No, I fell when I was younger,” he answered, a beat too quickly.

She recapped the tube and tried to hand it back. “You keep it,” she said.

“Oh, I couldn’t...”

“Okay, then I’ll give you some more next time.” Next time. The two words hung in the air, waiting for her to refute them.

She looked up, noticing then how the sun had dipped low. “I have to go.” She stood reluctantly. Talking with Sam had been such a reprieve from the dreariness of the rest of her life. “Do you need anything else?”

“Some longer branches, if you wouldn’t mind. I can use them to make a crutch.”

“I saw some out by the knoll.” She returned a few minutes later with several pieces of wood.

“Thank you,” Sam said. “I didn’t expect... That is, I didn’t think people here would be nice.”

“Oh.” She brought her hand to her mouth, feeling her cheeks flush.

“That was thoughtless of me to say,” he recovered hastily. “You have to understand, the Jews who came to America from Poland, well, they left for a reason and maybe they didn’t have the best experience here, or leave with the best impression of the people.” He was talking quickly now, stumbling over his words. But it was more than just awkwardness, or embarrassment over what he had said. He was nervous. “Thank you,” he repeated, somehow making the words sound like something more. She nodded and started toward the door.

“Please wait.” She turned back. “It’s important, you understand, that no one else know I am here.” His voice was grave and she knew he was talking about something larger than his personal safety.

“I promise.”

He opened his mouth to argue and then closed it again and stood reluctantly. “Lena, wait...” She turned back as he struggled to stand, holding on to the wall of the chapel. “The trains,” he said. “Can you see them from where you live?”

Helena hesitated, puzzled. She nodded. From the window of the barn loft where she had always hidden as a child when things got bad one could see the tracks. She went there still when she needed a moment of quiet. The trains had changed lately, increasing their frequency, seeming to move with grim determination. “You can tell a lot from the rail lines—how often they go, in which direction, what kind of cars they are carrying, if they are empty or full.”

“I’ll watch,” she promised.

She noticed the dark stubble on his cheeks and chin, which seemed to have grown thicker during her visit. “I can bring a razor next time,” she said, remembering her father’s, which sat in a tin cup in the cupboard, waiting for the soft peach fuzz on Michal’s upper lip to evolve.

“You mean you’ll... That is...” He paused, conflict washing over his face. “No, you mustn’t come again. It isn’t safe,” he added, and she saw then that he was worried for her safety. He was setting her free, giving her permission to go and not come back. Could she take it? Her shoulders slumped and she was suddenly overwhelmed and saddened, by all that had happened and that she had taken on in coming here—and by the fact that she was now leaving him.

“I’ll see you soon,” she replied firmly, not realizing that she was making the promise until the words had flown from her mouth. Then, before he could argue further, she turned and started down the hill.