When We Fall Read online

  His smile widens. ‘Your German is good these days. Perfect, almost.’

  ‘Why you cheeky…’ Ewa picks up an onion as if to throw it at him.

  He grins and puts up both hands with fingers crossed in surrender. He is right, though. When he knew her before, she spoke German in short impolite sentences like a child. The language comes out naturally now. She even dreams in it.

  He reaches out a hand. ‘Ewa… Ewa.’

  Ewa entwines her fingers in his and he pulls her towards him. She sinks on to his lap and wraps her arms around his neck. His face is so close that she cannot see it clearly. She runs a finger down his profile – the tip of his nose, his lips, his chin.

  ‘You’ve changed, Stefan.’

  He sighs. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have I?’

  He turns to look at her but says nothing.

  ‘Well, have I?’

  ‘No. Maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  He sighs again and shakes his head.

  ‘Why not? What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m trying to remember your face the last time I saw you.’

  ‘From the train?’

  ‘Yes. I was waving, desperately, from the window, but you didn’t wave back.’

  ‘I couldn’t. I was shaking so hard I couldn’t move.’

  She shivers at the memory and he strokes the back of his fingers over her cheek. ‘Hey, don’t cry. I’m back now.’

  ‘But for how long?’

  ‘Let’s just think about now, Ewa. This hour we have now, in this room.’

  Ewa sniffs and lifts herself away from him. She goes to the basket and takes out an apron, looping it over her head. ‘An hour at the most. And I will have to get on with the cleaning. But you can talk to me as I do it and tell me everything, and I mean absolutely everything, that has happened to you in the last four years.’

  ‘Three and a half.’

  ‘More than four since I last saw you.’ Ewa pulls a scrubbing brush and a cardboard tube of scouring powder out of the basket and goes into the kitchenette. ‘Where have you been all that time?’

  ‘Well, first Russia, but you know about that.’

  ‘Why did your letters stop?’

  He rubs his chin and smiles. ‘It’s not very easy to send a letter here from England.’

  ‘England? How in hell did you get to England from Moscow?’

  ‘I was never in Moscow.’

  He comes and stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

  Ewa squeezes a puff of scouring powder into the deep sink then attacks it with a stiff brush. ‘But that was the address, the Gorki Rest Home, Moscow. I sent letter after letter there for months after you stopped replying.’

  ‘They made us put that address on our letters for some reason. But it wasn’t real.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ewa feels oddly crestfallen that there had never really been any masseurs in white coats. ‘So where were you?’

  ‘Kozielsk. A long way from Moscow. I told you, didn’t I? It was an old monastery they made into a prison camp. And thank you for the goose fat and sausage by the way. They saved my life that winter.’

  Cold water gushes into the grimy sink, mushrooming the scouring powder into bubbles. Perhaps the porridge never stayed as hot as he said it did either. How stupid she had been to take everything in his letters at face value.

  ‘And was that place near Katyn?’

  His voice drops. ‘Where?’

  ‘The place where the ground was full of bodies. All the Polish prisoners of war, they say.’

  He goes up to her and takes hold of both her forearms. His face is very close.

  ‘What do you know about this?’

  ‘It’s hardly a secret. I saw it on a newsreel. In the spring.’ Her voice trembles. ‘I thought I saw your ink pen…’

  ‘Did you tell anyone about me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Even when the police were asking for information to help identify the bodies?’

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘There are still posters…’

  ‘No. I said nothing.’

  He tries to raise his mouth into a teasing smile but it does not quite come off; the effect is a little disturbing. ‘Did you not want to find me?’

  ‘I couldn’t risk our lodgers knowing too much about me.’

  As she whispers the words, Ewa feels a stab of guilt about Beck, and then irritation that Stefan has made her feel this way.

  She pushes Stefan back and shakes a soft cloth from her apron pocket. ‘So, come on then. How did you get to England?’

  She cannot imagine him amongst the English with their cosy parlours and cold manners.

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘When we have more time.’

  ‘No, now. What did you do in England?’

  He raises one shoulder. ‘I spent most of the time chain-smoking in a bollock-freezing hut on the side of a field.’

  Ewa considers what he is saying as she wipes at the sink. Ceramic whiteness begins to gleam through the grime.

  ‘You mean you’ve been a pilot in their Air Force?’

  ‘Clever girl.’

  He smiles again and reaches out for her but she bends to the floor where a broken bottle is lying on its side in a white puddle. Her cloth soaks through the milk then Ewa goes to the sink to rinse it. Perhaps he has been in England for years. Her stomach lurches at the thought of all of the things he must have done there that she will never know anything about.

  ‘Sometimes I used to wonder if you had stopped writing to me because you were in love with that lady pilot.’

  His face darkens. ‘What lady pilot?’

  ‘The one in your letters, from the Aero Club.’

  Stefan turns his back to her and goes to the table, pulling a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket.

  Ewa’s stomach lurches as she wonders if she has gone too far. She picks up the milk bottle from the floor. A rinse under the tap shows that only the neck is broken and she carries it, half-filled with water, to the table. As she starts to strip slimy leaves from the dahlia stems, she throws an uncertain glance at Stefan who is sitting on the dining chair with his legs stretched out.

  ‘It might not be long until they arrive, you know.’

  ‘Is anyone official coming?’

  ‘With the settlers? I don’t know. Someone from the SS probably, to make sure there are no problems.’

  ‘Who will it be?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  She squashes red and yellow blooms into the milk bottle. As she pulls the foliage down, Ewa feels the jagged edge of glass and looks at her finger. It hurts but does not quite bleed. She thinks then of all the pointless anguish, when she mourned Stefan as dead even though he was, the whole time, as healthy and handsome as he is now. She does not know whether she would rather weep or scream.

  To hide the look on her face she turns to the wall and lifts an enamel plaque off its hook. The black-faced Madonna with an unfeasibly small Christ perched on her arm is crusted with grime. Ewa blows on to the surface and rubs a sticky corner until a flash of gold shines through. She puts the plaque into her basket and pulls out the framed colour photograph to go in its place. The Führer stares at her blankly, one hand on the waist of his brown shirt, as she fixes the frame to the hook and straightens it.

  ‘There.’

  She turns. Stefan’s pale eyes are latched on to her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I like your hair that colour.’

  She pulls a sceptical face but then softens. God, he looks so good sitting there with his ankles crossed and his cigarette-hand hovering.

  He rakes a hand through his hair. ‘The braids look good too. And I’m glad y
ou are still wearing my ring.’

  She purses her lips. ‘You might need to get another one for me soon, seeing as you didn’t use any precautions just now.’

  ‘No problem. Just say the word and I will book a priest.’

  Her head shakes but her heart is galloping.

  Stefan’s face breaks into a smile, that broad teasing smile that lets her know he wants her. Whatever fear she used to have about getting pregnant, or the priest finding out, or even about eternal damnation, that smile always made her give in to him. As it does now.

  Ewa pulls a half-wilted yellow dahlia from the milk bottle before crushing it in her hand. The arrangement looks better without it. Then she goes towards Stefan, trying to scowl.

  ‘And will I see you again anytime soon? Or do you want to leave it another four years?’

  But he has already stood up and is pulling her to him, kissing her like he did in those days before there was any war or any need to pretend to be someone else.

  She pulls away from his mouth, breathless. ‘All right then, Stefan, precautions or not. We’ll have to be quick, but let’s do it properly this time.’

  Posen, Greater German Reich

  Tuesday 5 October

  Ewa leans against the stove, sipping barley coffee and telling herself that she is not going mad. Stefan was here. In the city, whole and healthy. Yesterday. She has her ruined under-things and an ache between her legs to prove it. But the reality of him, when he is not actually beside her, is still too far-fetched to believe.

  Apart from the purr of Untersturmführer Lange snoring somewhere above, the guest house is quiet. Outside, the half-hour chimes jangle from the old town hall. Four thirty. Ewa tweaks the blind and peers up at a half-moon dazzling the gabled rooftops. If it were not for the curfew she would go now. It is light enough to cycle and every cell of her body is yearning to go. As soon after dawn as you can, Stefan had said. But inviting a sentry check by leaving before five would not, on this particular journey, be very clever.

  Timings, preparations, ingredients run through her mind. The cycle to the farm should take no more than forty-five minutes but she must be back in good time to prepare lunch for midday sharp. What a good job she has already prepared split-pea broth and… Ewa freezes. Above, on the stairs, boards are creaking. Is one of them getting up? They rarely stir before six.

  The kitchen door opens slowly, and in the double beat of her heart, Ewa cannot quite make sense of who is there. For a terrifying, euphoric second she thinks it is Stefan, and then the figure, in stocking-feet and an unbuttoned shirt, comes into the kitchen.

  ‘Heinrich!’

  His look is sheepish as he comes up to her. ‘I am sorry, did I startle you?’

  ‘A little. When did you arrive?’

  ‘It was almost midnight. Thankfully your father was still up.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  She cannot believe that she slept through Beck’s arrival. She cannot quite believe that she slept at all. Thoughts of Stefan and all that she had done with him yesterday should surely have kept her awake. But once between the cold sheets, she fell instantly into dreamless oblivion.

  Beck stands awkwardly in front of her. Perhaps he is wondering whether to take her hand and kiss it. Perhaps a little too deliberately, she folds both hands over her apron.

  ‘Would you like some coffee? I can make you a real one, or I have a pot of barley coffee already on the stove.’

  ‘Thank you. Barley coffee would be most welcome.’ He leans against the dresser as she pours milk from a striped jug into a bowl. ‘You are up so early.’

  ‘I have a lot to do this week. Are you sure barley is all right?’

  ‘Perfect. I’m hoping to get a little more sleep.’

  ‘You had a long journey yesterday?’

  ‘At the weekend, actually. I have been detained with business at the Castle, and at the university, since then.’

  Ewa expects him to say more but he is sipping from the bowl and staring fixedly at nothing.

  ‘Thank you for your letter.’

  He nods.

  ‘So, how was it, in the east?’

  He shakes his head and blinks heavily as he turns to her. ‘Full of things that I wish I had not seen.’

  His face is so drawn and empty that she cannot help laying a hand on his forearm and squeezing it. ‘Poor you.’

  Colour floods back into his face. Does she still find him attractive? He is undeniably good-looking – tall and taut, with close-cropped hair and soft grey eyes. And that haunted look he now has is magnetic. But Ewa no longer has any need to consider this question, because Stefan is back.

  ‘And you, Eva, how have you been?’

  ‘Oh you know, the same. Busy.’

  ‘With the guest house?’

  ‘And Resettlement Office work. I took your advice to volunteer.’

  His eyes sparkle. ‘I’m glad.’

  She feels him begin to lean towards her and so she goes to the sink with her empty bowl. She must not let him get close enough for things to become awkward. Although, of course, they already are.

  Ewa smiles. ‘I helped with a resettlement yesterday as it happens. It quite wore me out, which is why I’m afraid that I was already asleep when you arrived.’

  ‘Please don’t apologise. I don’t mind in the least. I just hope that the settlers appreciated your efforts.’

  ‘Not exactly. Their German was quite poor but I think they were complaining that the accommodation wasn’t as large as their house in Sarata.’

  Beck shakes his head. ‘If you could see what it is like in the east, Eva…’ He sighs. ‘When one thinks of what we have done for them; evacuating them to safety here in the Reich and providing them with excellent accommodation in a modern city, the cheek of these Bessarabians is breathtaking.’

  His own German is still accentless, the hard syllables precise yet supple. Ewa wonders if all the Germans in Katowice talk like that.

  ‘Well, I did my best with the apartment even though it was quite a mess when I got there.’

  ‘I’m sure that you made it beautiful.’

  She smiles and looks at her hands. He will think that the flush in her cheeks is the result of his compliment rather than the thought of the apartment near Wall Strasse and, in particular, of the worn oriental rug where she and Stefan lay together for a second time.

  ‘And you will be busy this week, I suppose, Heinrich, with your lecture? That sounds exciting.’

  He brightens and seems to stand to attention. ‘Yes it is. I am hopeful that Reichsführer Himmler himself may even attend.’

  ‘Oh my! What is to be the subject of your talk?’

  ‘Did I not say in my letter? It is a summation of the work done this summer on the excavations.’

  ‘The excavations?’

  ‘At Katyn.’

  Ewa feels all the blood in her body sink to her feet. ‘Is that where you were?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She wonders why the name still chills her even though she now knows that Stefan’s is not amongst the corpses in its sandy soil. Perhaps the memory of her embarrassing Polish outburst in the cinema still makes the name, Katyn, feel dangerous. Or perhaps it is the coincidence of having heard the name so recently in her own mouth, as if Beck had been eavesdropping yesterday at the apartment.

  She tries to appear ever so slightly bored. ‘And will you have lots of interesting things to mention in your lecture?’

  Beck frowns. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Excellent. I wish you luck with it.’ She arranges her face into a look of concern. ‘I am sorry that your room is so small this time, Heinrich.’

  ‘But it is next to yours.’

  Ewa forces herself to smile as heat rises, unstoppably, into her neck. His attentions are embarrassing yet also a little exhilarating. She will have
to work out how to keep Beck at arm’s length without it seeming like an insult. All she can think to do at this moment is simply to ignore his remark.

  ‘If the reservation from Berlin does not arrive we can move you into the balcony room. That will give you more space for your papers and what have you.’

  Five chimes tinkle across the night air and into the kitchen. Curfew is ended.

  Ewa rubs her hands on her apron. ‘The city will be busy today because of the conference.’

  ‘Indeed. The Gauleiters of every province in the Reich, along with many of their staff and other officials, have come to Posen to hear the speeches. I am honoured to be a part of it.’

  Ewa smiles and wonders how to get away from Beck and out of the house without seeming impatient. ‘Did you know that we will be entertaining our very own Gauleiter here in the guest house on Saturday night?’

  ‘Gauleiter Greiser? Oh, I am very pleased for you, Eva. He cannot fail to be charmed by your hospitality.’

  ‘You know him, don’t you?’

  ‘I have worked with him, when I was last here in Warthegau.’

  ‘Ah, so perhaps you can help me. Do you by any chance know if he likes mushrooms? People can be very particular about them.’

  Beck laughs warmly. ‘Oh, I have no doubt about that. He is a native of this region and everyone here loves mushrooms!’

  ‘Yes. I suppose that is true. Thank you.’ Ewa laughs. ‘So perhaps I shall get on my way to collect some this morning.’

  ‘Really? In the city?’

  ‘Not far outside it. There is a wood I have visited since my mother took me there as a child. The crop is always large and varied at this time of year.’

  He looks at his wristwatch. ‘If you wish, I can make a telephone call and ask a driver to take you there. It is for the enjoyment of the Gauleiter, after all.’

  She forces her smile to widen. ‘That is very kind. Could the car come straightaway?’

  ‘Soon, I think.’

  She scratches her head. ‘Actually, no. Please don’t trouble anyone. I’m sure that the drivers are very busy and I can be in the wood within the hour on my bicycle. I find that the flavour of mushrooms picked at dawn is so superior. Besides, I enjoy cycling and I don’t do it often enough.’