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To my mother and father. With love.
The dead have need of fairytales too.
ZBIGNIEW HERBERT
SPRING 1946. TO ENGLAND.
The boy was everything to her. Small and unruly, he had a nervy way about him like a wild creature caught in the open. All the dark hearts of the lost, the found, and the never forgotten lived in his childs body, in his quick eyes. She loved him with the same unforgiving force that pushes forests from the deep ground, but still she feared it was not enough to keep him. So she was taking him to England, determined that Janusz would love him and keep him safe.
On the ships sailing list she was named as Silvana Nowak. Twenty-seven years old. Married. Mother of a son, Aurek Josef, aged seven years.
What is your profession? the British soldier asked her, checking the identity papers she put before him.
She looked at the documents on his desk and saw pages of womens names. All were listed as housewives or housekeepers.
Behind her, hundreds more women, dressed as she was in donated clothes, stood silently with their children. Above the soldiers head, a sign in several languages including Polish, detailed the ships rules. All blankets and sheets remain the property of the ship. All stolen items will be confiscated.
Silvana tightened her grasp on her son. The soldier glanced at her quickly and then looked back to his papers. She knew why. It embarrassed him to see a woman so unkempt and a child with such restless ways. She touched her headscarf, checking it was in place, and pressed her other hand into Aureks back, trying to make him stand up straight.
Profession?
Survivor, she whispered, the first word that came to her.
The soldier didnt look up. He lifted his pen. Housekeeper or housewife?
I dont know, she said, and then, aware of the queue shifting impatiently behind her, Housewife.
So that was it. She was recorded, written neatly into a book in indelible black ink. She was given a transport number, a label pinned on her lapel that corresponded with the details on the ships passenger list. Proof that she and the boy were mother and son. That was a good start. Nobody, after all, could disagree with or dispute an official document. Only the title housewife looked questionable. Together or separate, Silvana was sure nobody would believe the words house or wife had anything to do with her.
All night, while the sea carried the ship and its passengers toward another land, Silvana worked at remembering. She found herself a space in one of the crowded corridors belowdecks and sat, arms crossed, legs tucked under her. Curled into herself in this way, with Aurek hidden under her coat, she breathed through the odor of sweat and diesel, the throb of the engines marking time, while she tried to recall her life with Janusz. Always, though, the same memories came to her. The ones she didnt want to own. A road she didnt want to travel. A filthy sky full of rain and planes coming out of the clouds. She shook her head, tried to think of other things, to cut off the image that would surely come. And then there it was. The wet mud shining underfoot. Trees twisting in the wind and the child swaddled in a jumble of blankets, lying in a wooden handcart.
Silvana pulled Aurek tighter to her, rocking him back and forth, the memories departing. He snaked a bony hand out from under her coat and she felt his small fingers searching her face. And how was it that love and loss were so close together? Because no matter how she loved the boyand she did, furiously, as if her own life depended on himloss was always there, following at her heels.
By the time the dawn sky leaked light into the darkness, Silvana was too tired to think anymore and finally closed her eyes, letting the heartbeat drone of the engines settle her to a thankfully dreamless slumber.
Morning brought with it a pale sun and salt-laden winds. Silvana pushed her way through the crowds to the upper decks, Aurek hanging on her coattail. Gripping the handrail, she let him settle in a crouch between her feet, the weight of him against her legs. Green waves lay far below and she stared down at them, trying to imagine what England would be like, a place she knew nothing of except that this was where her husband, Janusz, now lived.
She had been lost and he had found her. He must have thought he was reaching back into the past; that she would be as she was when he left her, his young wife, red hair pinned up in curls, a smile on her face, and their darling son in her arms. He couldnt know that the past was dead and she was the ghost of the wife he once had.
The heaving of the ship made her dizzy and she leaned against the handrail. She had left her country far behind and now there was no shoreline, no land to mourn, only water as far as the horizon, and shards of dazzling light splintering the waves. She hadnt seen Janusz since the day he left Warsaw six long years ago. Would she even recognize him now? She could recall the day they met, the date they married, his shoe size; that he was right-handed. But where did this awkward grabbing of dates and facts get her?
She squinted at the sea, the waves churning, over and over. She had loved him once. That much she was sure of. But so much lost time stretched between them. Six years might as well be a hundred. Could she really lay claim to a man simply because she remembered his collar size?
Aurek pulled at her hand and Silvana dropped to her knees, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve, trying to smile. The boy was the reason she was making this journey. A boy must have a father. Soon the past would be behind them and England would become their present. There she was sure they would be able to live each day with no yesterdays and no memories to threaten or histories to follow them. She ran her fingers through Aureks cropped hair, and he wrapped his arms around her neck. She was on her way to a new life, and her one piece of Poland was still with her.
22 BRITANNIA ROAD, IPSWICH
Janusz thinks the house looks lucky. He steps back to get a better look at Number 22 Britannia Road, and admires the narrow redbrick property with its three windows and blue door. The door has a pane of colored glass set in it: a yellow sunrise sitting in a green border with a bluebird in its center. Its so typically English it makes him smile. Its just what he has been searching for.
It is the last house in a terrace, and although it stands next to a bomb site, somehow it has escaped any real damage itself. The only sign is a crack in the colored glass pane, a line running through the bluebird that makes it look as if it might have problems if it tried to fly. Apart from that, it is possible to believe the war has never touched this building. Its a fanciful idea, he knows, but one he likes. Maybe the house will share some of its luck with him and his wife and son.
Dont you worry about that eyesore, says the estate agent beside him, waving his hand at the wasteland where dirty-faced children are playing. Thatll be cleared in no time. Well have this town back on her feet quick enough. He straightens the cuffs of his tweed jacket and hands Janusz a bunch of keys. There you are. All yours. I hope you like living here. Can I ask you where youre from?
Janusz has been waiting for this question. The first thing people want to know is where you come from.
