When We Fall Read online

  There is another explanation, however; one that seems to be hovering just out of reach above the shimmering surface of the pool. Stefan might be working in reality for the occupiers. But the word traitor will not fully form in Ewa’s mind. Stefan, like her, like Haller and like many people in this part of the country, has German forefathers and relatives. But Poland is their homeland, the country where they were born and grew up. The country they love. Although, of course, Stefan is more German than her. His own father was born in Bavaria…

  ‘Goodbye then!’

  Ewa splutters and looks up, treading water. Frida’s clacking heels make a watery echo along the poolside. She is neat and ladylike again, apart from the wet hair still clinging mannishly to her scalp.

  ‘Till next week!’

  Ewa gives a wave in reply and paddles to the edge of the deep end, entirely put off her stroke. She holds on to the bar, stretching her leg muscles downwards, pointing her toes as straight and deep as they will go.

  Above, a soaring barrel arch mirrors the pool’s blue eddies. Ewa plunges her face into cool bleachiness then flattens her back and kicks off into the swirl of her own current. She cannot blame Stefan for keeping secrets. It would not be surprising if he has been given a special assignment, separate to the work of the AK. The British may want something in return for sending him here, something more than a prototype night-transmitter. The landing of a transport aeroplane so deep into enemy territory is a perilous, expensive operation. Perhaps this is what the suitcase is all about. The one with the smell, and the real reason that she is here, swimming in a former synagogue.

  At the far end of the pool, behind the diving board, the light from a row of tall thin windows turns suddenly pink and a water-born sunset ripples across the pool. Ewa pushes off then flips on to her back, arms windmilling in reverse. It could be perhaps that forensic medicine is the key to the likely contents of Stefan’s suitcase. That would account for its possible smell…

  A shudder forces Ewa’s chin below the surface and she swallows a chlorine-filled mouthful. She splutters then lies motionless in the water. Above the spectator gallery, the barrel arch merges into a dome. Translucent blue darkens towards the apex like the sky on a summer evening.

  If she loses her faith in Stefan, she may as well not believe in anything. And marrying him before it is too late might be the only way to prove that she still has faith in herself.

  Ewa’s hands start to make figures of eight to keep herself afloat. Water seeps under the rubber bathing cap and rumbles inside her ears. If she does marry Stefan, he might at least think twice before rushing back into the arms of some English girl. Because she is beginning to realise that there must be an English girl. It is impossible that Stefan would have been without a woman for so long. Ewa can smell this girl in his jokes and evasions. And she can picture her too; one of those willowy English types who is careful not to scratch her perfect nails as she telephones from a government office inside Buckingham Palace, perhaps to organise this very mission.

  Ewa closes her eyes and attempts to empty her head of everything but the echo of water. Her legs sink from the surface so gently that the tile against her foot comes as a shock. She stands up and puts her hands on her hips. At the far end of the pool, the high diving board looms against the darkening windows.

  Water trickles out of the bathing cap as Ewa wades to the steps. Her woollen swimsuit gushes as she climbs out. She seems to have the whole pool to herself. The door to the reception area is closed and that attendant must be snoozing on the front desk. She goes to the ladder and starts to climb, bypassing the springy diving board and stepping up on to the high platform.

  It is much higher than it looks from below. She has not dived off anything this high for at least ten years. Not since her mother died in fact. She can remember leaning over the outdoor pool, head first and fearless. But she cannot remember how that fearlessness really felt. At the edge, she takes a breath. Far, far below, a locker key has been dropped on to the blue floor of the deep end. Through the water’s glassy surface, the lost key, with its red band, looks close enough to scoop up. As if there is no water in the pool at all.

  Ewa swallows and glances at the door to reception. But there is still no sign of the attendant. No one has seen her come up here, so there is no need for embarrassment. She turns and scurries back down the ladders and into the door marked DAMEN.

  Only Frida’s wet footprints pattern dusty tiles. There are not enough Germans in the city to make use of all of the sports facilities, rush-hour trams and guest house dining rooms that are reserved for their sole use. In the shower, Ewa turns the dial and pipes groan and splurt into a thin hot stream. She scans the shower area and changing room, but there is no sign of what she was hoping to find. Perhaps she will need to look elsewhere in the city for a hiding place.

  She slips off the fuzzy, sagging swimsuit to wring it out and water cascades into the drain at the end of the line of showers. As she throws the swimsuit over the side partition of a changing cubicle, her wet skin recoils from a draught of cool air. With her face to the gap between the back of the cubicles and the wall, Ewa feels the air pouring from a wide metal grille by her feet. She reaches in to feel for the screw heads. One at each corner of the grille – flat slots. There is a metal nail file at the bottom of her handbag and if the attendant comes in she will say that her earring has rolled behind the cubicles. Except, of course, that she would not have to say anything. Her nakedness alone would scare him off.

  The top screws come out easily and the grille tilts forward. Ewa crouches to look into the hole. It is dark, but seems dry and empty. Just an air vent in the wall that should have a corresponding metal grille somewhere outside. If that can be removed, there would be access to this vent from the street, even if the pool is closed. And so, if she is not mistaken, this ventilation shaft might be somewhere that a suitcase, even a very smelly one, could remain unnoticed for as long as Stefan wants.

  Posen, Greater German Reich

  Thursday 7 October

  ‘Eva.’

  Ewa stops, heart pounding, at the bottom of the stairs. She has had word, via the butcher’s lad, to meet Stefan at three and it is almost half two. But now Beck wants her.

  ‘Is that you, Eva? Do you have a moment?’

  He is in the dining room. When he did not come down for luncheon she assumed that he was tired or too busy. But if he wants feeding now she will not make it to the cemetery in time. She eyes her hat still on its peg then sighs and goes through the half-open door.

  ‘Obersturmführer.’ She smiles. ‘Can I get you something?’

  There is no need for this formality, they are alone in the house. But perhaps it will signal to him that she has other things to do.

  ‘No, Eva, thank you.’

  His chair is pulled at an angle from the table and his feet stretch out, one ankle crossed over the other. He rests an elbow on the table, smoke rising from the cigarette in his hand. He looks terrible.

  ‘Heinrich? Is everything all right, are you unwell?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Some camomile tea, perhaps?’

  ‘No, no. Can you just sit with me for a moment?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She perches on a chair at the same table. ‘Is it something you ate at the Castle perhaps?’

  ‘No, I don’t think it’s that.’

  He is grey-pale.

  ‘Or stress. Do you have another lecture to deliver?’

  ‘Eva?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know, don’t you, that if you ever need me to help you, I will do it.’

  Her heart gives a hollow beat. ‘What do you mean, Heinrich?’

  ‘I mean that you can rely on me, as a person. You may not want to know me more… intimately than you already do, but my regard for you is profound and sincere. And, whatever happens, I would a
lways put your welfare before any other consideration.’

  She tries to laugh. ‘Oh, you sound so serious, Heinrich. You are really under the weather.’

  He looks away, taking a long drag on the cigarette and does not answer. Then he sighs.

  ‘Did you have your swim yesterday?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The pool is a truly marvellous facility. Such an improvement.’

  He holds out the yellow packet of Mokri Extra Strength to her. She smiles and puts up a hand.

  ‘I can’t, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I know you are busy. Always out and about on your errands.’

  ‘Only to see the coal merchant today. I am going to start negotiating for a good rate. Winter is coming.’ She straightens her skirt as if to stand up. ‘Are you not busy with the conference this afternoon?’

  He shrugs and leans forward to stub the cigarette in the ashtray. Scarlet flashes from the silk lining of the black jacket hanging on his chair.

  Ewa takes a breath. ‘Or at the Institute of Forensic Medicine?’

  ‘The Institute? Why do you ask?’

  She keeps her face as blank and open as she can. ‘Is that not where you are doing your new work? I thought I saw you going in there.’

  ‘You were mistaken.’

  Coldness washes down her spine. She has gone too far.

  Beck stands suddenly and throws on his jacket in a swirl of scarlet and black. ‘I will not keep you any longer from your coal merchant. I must be off too.’

  Ewa’s heart pumps against her ribcage as he lifts the gunbelt that has been hanging on the chair and straps it across his body. The silver skull embossed into the holster grins; a metallic whiff of revolver crosses the table. He definitely has something to hide.

  Ewa tries to rein in her features and smile pleasantly. ‘I hope you have your appetite back by this evening.’

  He nods slowly as he tightens his waist buckle and adjusts the weight of the gun on his hip. Then with stiff elegance, he raps his heels together and thrusts his arm into a precise salute.

  ‘Heil Hitler.’

  ‘Heil Hitler, Obersturmführer.’

  Ewa runs over this conversation again in her mind as she buttons her jacket and hurries over damp cobblestones. Beck clearly does not want her to think that she saw him at the Institute of Forensic Medicine. Which means that she very likely did. Can he really be in league with Stefan? And why? But if they really are working together, it is as good as pointless to try and hide her own connection with Stefan.

  Ewa’s legs weaken at this thought. Even though there is no traffic on St Adalbert Strasse, she stops and waits on the kerb to gather her strength. She must stay strong, and not let her mind spiral into anxiety with every possible risk. Bravery is no longer optional.

  Three clangs reverberate from the squat wooden belfry beside the church as Ewa hitches up the handbag on her shoulder and crosses the street. Her towel and still-damp swimsuit make the bag bulge but she doubts that Stefan will notice.

  Inside the cemetery walls, her pace quickens. Her heels skip on flagstones and then gravel. Beside the obelisk to the drowned children, the butcher’s lad had said. Ewa shivers as she hurries towards the wooded hollow.

  In the new cemetery where Ewa’s mother lies, everything is clean and orderly, especially since the enforcement of German rules; no photographs on the graves, no coloured lamps or artificial posies. But here in the old cemetery, red and green lanterns flicker around some of the headstones in the afternoon gloom. But most of the graves’ inhabitants have been dead too long for any living relatives to trouble the German occupiers with the vulgarity of their traditions.

  Ewa’s feet slow. Someone in a swinging grey mackintosh is half-hidden behind a sandstone obelisk. She cannot see enough to know that it is Stefan, but neither can she stop herself lunging forward. The figure turns.

  ‘Ewa!’

  They fall together. Stefan wraps his mac around her, pinning her inside its stiff folds. Ewa clings to him, desperate not to loosen the embrace. But already Stefan is pulling his mouth away from hers and sliding his gaze over her shoulder. She turns to see an old woman swathed in a shawl who is hobbling towards them down the path.

  ‘Ignore her, Stefan.’ Ewa takes his face between her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes. Her voice catches. ‘By Sunday you’ll be gone.’

  He lifts her hands from his cheeks. ‘You must put that out of your mind, Ewa.’

  ‘How can I?’

  He sighs and steps back, buttoning his coat and fastening the belt. The coat is too big and makes him look overweight, as he might look, Ewa imagines, ten years from now. She bats away the unimaginable thought – ten years. Time seems elastic now. Making it past Saturday is hard enough to imagine.

  Stefan bends to pick up something from behind a granite tomb. A dead smell, like a pot of bone broth left too long on the stove, seeps up. Ewa gives a start. The smell is coming from a suitcase, medium-sized but pale turquoise and shockingly obvious. Has Stefan carried it all the way from the farm? Or maybe, she thinks with a jolt of understanding, just from the Institute of Forensic Medicine.

  Stefan nods towards a tree-arched path that undulates into the heart of the cemetery and they set off. As they pass the obelisk, Ewa blinks at the carved words on the other side.

  Friedhelm Carl Schmitt 1888–1895

  Drowned alongside his dearest friend Zygmunt Solski 1885–1895

  Always together

  In the faint breeze, leaves creep around the gravel paths. Moss-grown gravestones slump into uncut grass.

  Ewa skips to catch up with Stefan and fumbles for his free hand. She glances at his face under the brim of his hat. ‘Is it heavy, that suitcase?’

  ‘Not really. You’ll manage it all right.’

  ‘I haven’t said I’ll take it yet.’

  ‘Then why did you come?’

  ‘To see you, you fool.’

  Stefan slides her a half-smile and squeezes her hand. ‘I like you in that hat.’

  ‘I look like a Tyrolean housewife.’

  ‘You look like a film star.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  She sees that look in his eyes again.

  ‘Where are we going, Stefan?’

  His pace slows. They have come to an overgrown dip between low bushes. ‘Over there?’

  She guesses what he is thinking ‘Mother of God, Stefan. Are you serious? We can’t do it here.’

  Yet even as she says it, Ewa finds herself scanning the vegetation for some other place where they might not be seen from the paths.

  Then she bites her lip and comes to a stop. Is this as much as their lives together will ever be? A hasty, furtive coupling in an overgrown graveyard? She closes her eyes.

  ‘Are you all right, Ewa?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Can’t you see? If you leave me again I think I will die.’

  ‘Ewa…’

  His warm hand is on her cheek, his eyes trying to search hers but she turns away. Everything is so much easier for him. He will slip back into his life as a spy or a pilot or whatever that English girl tells him to be next. But Ewa’s carefully assembled world will be ravaged by his absence. How will she bear it?

  She ignores the yellow cigarette packet that Stefan is holding out. ‘How long have we got?’

  He shrugs and lights a cigarette. ‘I have to be back at the farm before curfew. But we could hang around here a bit longer.’

  Ewa’s head throbs with fatigue. This is not how they should be spending their precious minutes together. Her fingers press against her forehead. She cannot look at Stefan.

  ‘When we are apart I can’t think of anything except seeing you again. But now that you’re here, all I can think of is the moment when you will g
o.’

  He does not reply but is staring at the top of the path where overhanging trees create a doorway of light.

  ‘Stefan…’

  ‘Is St Adalbert’s church kept open?’

  His voice has thickened.

  ‘It should be. Why?’

  ‘We can go in there.’

  ‘Not to…’

  ‘Just to see what’s what. Come, take my arm. Talk to me about something, anything, whilst we walk. This place would make anyone gloomy.’

  As he moves the suitcase, the peculiar odour makes Ewa catch her breath. Then she steps forward and links her elbow with Stefan’s.

  ‘What is your cover story?’

  ‘I’m Haller’s Polish cousin from Warsaw. Come to do the book-keeping. A special favour to Haller from his Party pals.’

  Ewa gives a snort. Haller’s membership of the Nazi Party is like this turquoise suitcase. Who would believe anything so conspicuous could conceal enemy secrets? If that, of course, is what the suitcase contains.

  They are out of the trees now. The steeply gabled roof of St Adalbert’s rises from the brow of the hill. He can’t really be intending, can he, that they fornicate inside the church? She wants him, more than anything, but the idea of having those sorts of relations on hallowed ground, where the priests might see or hear… Holy Mary, the very thought is impossible.

  ‘There’s bound to be people in there, Stefan. St Adalbert’s is the only church near the old town that Poles are allowed to use. All we can do in there is pray.’

  But his pace does not slacken and when the ancient church door opens, the clunk of the latch echoes into stony silence.

  Ewa stands with Stefan at the rear of the pews. The colonnaded nave, intricately painted in dark reds and pinks, seems deserted. Through odours of polish and incense, a thread of burning weaves up from the little flames that dot the darkness below a statue of Our Lady. Whoever lit the candles is no longer here.