The Winter Guest

  Three hours later, she reached the last hill. In the village below, the houses were shuttered, thin slats of light escaping drawn shutters. Quickening her step, Helena made her way down the deserted road, hopeful that no one would see her. They put the children to bed early in winter to stay warm and not burn the lights needlessly. Ruth would not be happy trying to corral all three by herself.

  The house was dark as Helena entered, and for a moment she was hopeful that Ruth was asleep, too. But as she entered the bedroom, she saw in the moonlight her twin sitting up against the headboard, holding her knitting needles beneath the faint light of the lamp. She did not meet Ruth’s eyes as she climbed into bed, but held her breath, waiting for the rebuke. But Ruth sat silently, clutching the motionless needles and staring into the darkness. Her lower lip was set in that way that it did when she was angry. Could she possibly know about Sam and the risks that Helena had just taken to help him? Helena noticed then that she was trembling. Not anger. Terror.

  “What is it? Ruti, what’s wrong?”

  “Someone came to the house,” Ruth said, her whisper so faint Helena struggled to hear.

  An icy hand seemed to clutch at Helena’s chest. “Who came?”

  “A policeman.” Not the Nazis, Helena thought, managing to breathe. But the thought was only momentary comfort. The Polish police, headquartered in My´slenice, were little more than puppets for the Gestapo, and they seldom ventured into the sleepy village unless summoned. Had he come looking for Sam and his papers?

  “What did he want?”

  “Hoarding.” Ruth pronounced the word with difficulty. “Someone told him that I’d been buying extra food at market. I haven’t, of course,” she hastened to add.

  No, Helena thought guiltily. I have. It had begun innocently enough. Once last month as she’d started from town on her way to see Mama and visit Sam, she’d spied the green awning of the market that popped up in the town’s tiny square twice weekly. On impulse, she’d walked toward it, fingering her mother’s ration coupons. She’d purchased a few mottled carrots, ignoring the farmer’s curious stare. Mama wasn’t eating the food she brought these days, anyway. And Sam had seemed so appreciative. After that, she’d stopped at the market each week to find an extra bit of food to bring him. She hadn’t imagined that someone would notice or take the time to report her. Only they had, and now it had caused the police to focus on their family. All of the reasons she should not have helped Sam were exposed and magnified a thousandfold before her.

  Ruth inhaled a raspy breath beside her. Helena turned to her twin, who suddenly seemed smaller and more fragile. “Did he hurt you? Or the children?” Her voice rose with panic. Ruth shook her head. Helena exhaled, then put her arm awkwardly around her sister. The role of comforter was still not a familiar one to her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Ruth replied quickly, her voice oddly unemotional. She blinked, a slight hesitation, and Helena wondered if her sister was telling the truth. “The children don’t even know,” she added. “Michal and Dorie were out playing in the field. And Karolina was asleep almost the whole time.”

  Helena’s body went slack with relief. Everyone was fine. But it could have been so much worse. I should have been here, she berated herself silently. If it wasn’t for Sam I would have been. Of course, if it wasn’t for him, none of this would have happened in the first place.

  “He left just as suddenly,” Ruth finished. Helena leaped up and raced to the window. “He took the goat,” Ruth added, her voice cracking.

  Helena bit her lip, fighting the urge to rebuke Ruth. The goat had been their last hope, providing a sour but drinkable milk. He, along with the mule, might have one day been a source of meat as a last resort. But it was just an animal, and her sister was in no condition for scolding. “It’s not your fault,” she offered as Ruth began to cry. “There was nothing you could have done to stop him.”

  “Oh, Helena,” Ruth sobbed quietly now. “How could anyone think that we were hoarding?” Then she looked up questioningly. “Unless you...” Ruth trailed off, reluctant to finish the thought.

  Helena did not answer. Her mind reeled back to a time when they were six and playing in Mama’s armoire. Ruth had tried to hand her a bottle of perfume but it slipped between their fingers and shattered on the floor. Helena rushed to find a cloth to clean it up before Mama noticed, but when she returned, their mother was standing in the doorway. “Ruth!” Mama had cried out, taking in Ruth as the lone culprit. In the moment, Helena was pleased. She was always the one in trouble for breaking things or messing up. Immediately afterward, though, she began to regret her silence. Ruth always came to her aid when she was in trouble, with a kind word or shared treat to comfort her. How could she let her sister take the blame? But by then, it was too late—confessing her role in the accident days later would mean admitting she had lied. And so the secret had remained buried and nearly forgotten.

  Ruth reached for her hand. Helena did not want to answer. But she couldn’t lie to her sister about this. “It was me.” Ruth’s mouth formed a small circle of surprise. “I’m sorry.”

  “But why? Surely not for yourself.”

  “No, of course not.” They both tried so hard to eat as little as possible, passing on whatever they could to the little ones. Helena searched for a plausible alternative explanation. She considered telling Ruth that she’d taken the food to the hospital to bribe the hospital staff. But that would be another lie. Helena swallowed. She wanted to say nothing. Until now, Sam had been hers, only hers. She bit her lip, keeping the secret her own for just a few seconds more. Finally, she could hide it no longer. “A...man.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Remember the night I thought there were bombs?”

  Ruth nodded. “You were wrong.”

  “I was wrong.” Helena brushed aside her annoyance. Why between them was it always about fault? “But the next day on the way back from seeing Mama, I discovered a man in the woods. An American soldier.” Ruth gasped audibly and Helena realized how much had changed in the weeks that Sam had come. His presence, which had become so much a part of Helena’s life, was nearly unfathomable to Ruth. “Sa— The soldier, was badly wounded.” She did not share his name, keeping that one thing for herself.

  “So you helped him.” There was a disapproving note to Ruth’s voice.

  “Yes. Just some wood and a bit of food. You would have done the same,” she added, daring Ruth to disagree.

  Ruth’s eyes were wide. “You never said a word.” The sisters had never had secrets before. “So that’s what the policeman was talking about.”

  “Better then that you didn’t know and have to lie.” Because Ruth could not keep a secret, hung the silent implication between them.

  “He’s still at the chapel?” Ruth asked, her voice breathy with disbelief. Helena nodded. “He has to leave.”

  “He can’t. His leg is injured but healing. He’ll be leaving soon. It’s exciting in a way,” she added. Beside her, Ruth stiffened. “I just mean, things before were so boring.”

  “Helena, do you like this man?” An amused note crept into Ruth’s voice. “Surely you can’t think—”

  “No, of course not.” Her sister’s incredulousness was a kick to the stomach. Why was the notion of a man having feelings for her so impossible for Ruth to fathom?

  “In any event, you can’t see him again.”

  “But he has no food. Without me, he’ll die.”

  “That isn’t our concern. Don’t you see?” Ruth’s voice grew shrill. Then, glancing down at the children, she dropped to a whisper. “Every time you go there you’re endangering us, them. If someone finds out, we’ll be arrested or worse.”

  “That won’t happen.” But her voice wavered with uncertainty.

  “It already has.” Ruth’s voice crackled with anger. She
was right, of course. Helena had thought she was being so careful. Yet even a few extra vegetables and some cheese had not gone unnoticed.

  Still, she could not stand the idea of leaving Sam on his own. “But he’s here to help us.”

  “No one will help us but ourselves. Who is going to put food on the table or care for the children if something happens to you?” Helena did not respond. Ruth put her hand on Helena’s. “I’m sorry,” she said softening. “I’m sure you like him, but we have to think of the children.”

  “It’s not that,” Helena protested. But feeling the blush creep into her cheeks, she knew her sister would not be fooled.

  “With Piotr...” Ruth began, then her voice trailed off.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She was thinking, Helena knew, of what might have been. Piotr would have married Ruth if she had been willing to move away and leave her family behind. Ruth had refused, of course, and he had gone. Ruth had never said as much, not wanting her sister to feel a burden. But she was telling Helena now that she understood the sacrifice, demanding that Helena do the same: I chose you.

  It was not the same, Helena told herself. Ruth could not have possibly felt for Piotr what she did for Sam. Despite that, Helena knew that she had no choice. “Fine,” she relented.

  As Ruth turned back to her knitting, Helena picked up a book of poetry that Michal had gotten at market some time ago. As she tried to read, her thoughts were interrupted by visions of the chapel just a few hours earlier, to Sam’s admission that he cared for her, the proposal of a life together. Sitting in the warmth of his embrace had been the happiest moment she had ever known. But in the next minute it had been extinguished, a flame too tiny and new to withstand the stormy gusts of wind that surrounded it.

  I could go with him, she thought. Maybe we could send for Ruth and the others and it really would be all right.

  A while later, Helena gave up reading and set down the book. Ruth extinguished the lamp. Her fingernails dug into the back of Helena’s hand suddenly. “So you promise, you won’t see him again?” Her voice cut through the darkness, reading Helena’s thoughts.

  Helena hesitated, resting her hand on Michal’s back. “I promise.” But she remembered Sam as he sat against the wall of the chapel. Though she had told him that she wanted him to leave without warning, he had not said the same. No, she could not disappear without an explanation and have him think that she had deserted him. She had to return one more time to make him understand.

  “Now perhaps things can go back to the way they were,” Ruth mumbled drowsily. Helena did not answer. She did not want to go back, even if it were possible.

  Ruth’s fingers laced with her sister’s, as if forming a protective arc over the sleeping children between them. They began to breathe in unison and soon it was hard to tell where Ruth’s hand ended and her own began. I promise. The words echoed in Helena’s mind in time with Michal’s gentle snores, his back rising and falling beneath her touch. She saw Sam, alone by the fire in the chapel and with each breath the image seemed to grow dimmer and farther away, until it faded and was gone.

  11

  The next morning Helena made her way slowly through the predawn darkness of the forest, holding aloft the flashlight that Sam had given her. The silence, suffocating and deep, seemed to press down around her.

  Something brushed against her face. A cobweb, she realized, swatting it away. As she did, a rustling sound came from the brush beside the path. Helena stopped. She was just steps from where she had heard a similar noise and found Sam. She walked to the bushes where he had lain. They were undisturbed and as she pushed them back she thought she might find him there again, helpless as a sleeping child. But a small brown mole glared at her disdainfully before scurrying away. Studying the bare earth, her heart swelled. What if she had never taken this route? Was having found Sam worth the knife that seemed to dig at her insides now, knowing that she would not see him again?

  Helena forced herself to keep moving, her legs heavy and unwilling. Soon she reached the clearing before the chapel. The windows were dark. She had come at this hour deliberately, hoping that Sam would still be asleep.

  She approached the church, clutching the package of food inside her bag. It was bigger than normal, and more than she should have taken. But she had not had time—nor would she have dared—to go to market again. This was to be the last visit, so she wanted to bring him as much as possible. Earlier, Ruth had heard her moving about and had come from the bedroom, eyeing the satchel she was packing, appraising its size. Helena had met her eyes defiantly, daring her sister to protest that she could not be taking all of that food to their mother. But Ruth had not said anything, and a minute later Helena left the house without explanation. Perhaps Ruth understood from her own loss of Piotr that Helena needed to come here once more to say goodbye.

  Of course, she wasn’t actually going to do that. Helena couldn’t disappear without telling Sam—but she couldn’t bear to see him again and to walk away, knowing it was the last time. She had scribbled a note: “I’m sorry that I cannot come to see you anymore, but my siblings need me at home. Be safe. Fondly, Helena.” She had agonized over that last bit for some time, vacillating between ending the note “with love” or just her name, and finally settling somewhere in the middle. She hated to lie about the reason she could no longer come, but she did not want to tell Sam about the police, to worry him or admit that he had been right about helping him being too dangerous. She’d included a small photograph of herself as he’d asked.

  Helena crept closer to the chapel door, the twigs beneath her feet seeming to betray her every step. She peered through the window. Sam lay by the nearly cold stove, curled up in a ball, much as he had been when she’d found him under the bush. But his face was peaceful now, his breathing even. Desire rose up in her and she desperately wanted to run through the door and lie down beside him, to revel in the embrace she had dreamed a thousand times but not fully experienced. She considered the idea: If it was to be the last time, why not have everything? Silent hands of reason seemed to restrain her. It was not that she thought it would be wrong—she felt whole with Sam in a way that transcended any social conventions. Rather, she knew that if she got that close to him she would never be able to pull away. That was the whole reason for coming now, before dawn, on her way to Mama instead of on the way home: if he was still asleep, she would not have to look in his eyes and tell him goodbye.

  She swallowed over the lump in her throat. No, this was as close as she dared to get. She set down the package she’d put together, the extra food designed to last him as long as possible, the blanket and finally the note. She gazed once more at the only man she had ever loved, watching the visions of the life they might have had together rise and fade into the leaves like smoke. Then she turned and walked with leaden feet back into the darkness of the woods.

  Two hours later, Helena made her way to the top of the hill above the city. As she surveyed the streets below, Sam’s face appeared in her mind. It was midmorning now, and he would be awake. If he had ventured outside already, he would have found her note and realized that she was gone for good. She stopped, her sadness and disappointment exploding within her heart. She had failed him—not only was she abandoning him, but she had not been able to reach the resistance.

  She crossed the Planty, the thin strip of parkland that ringed the Old City, now gray with dry, withered brush. Beyond the buildings to the north, the towers of the Mariacki Cathedral stood high against the slate-gray sky, beckoning her, and she wondered whether she should attempt once more to make contact. Helena knew that she should visit Mama quickly and return home, in case the policeman decided to pay another visit. But if she was to abandon Sam, the least she could do was to try one last time to fulfill her promise to help him. A quick detour would harm no one. Determined now, she started toward the Old City.

  At the edge
of the rynek, she stopped, contemplating the entranceway to the cathedral. She could try to make contact there again, of course, but there was no greater chance that anyone would be willing to help. She recalled overhearing the men whispering to one another. “Pod Gwiazdami,” one had said to the other, seemingly speaking about a planned meeting. Under the stars. It referred, she assumed, to a bar or kawiarnia of some sort—she’d observed that several establishments around the old city were called “pod” something-or-other, presumably because they were located beneath the streets of the market square, a subterranean maze of medieval cellars now serving food and drink.

  She walked the perimeter of the square uncertainly, peering down the streets that fanned out in all directions. The sidewalks bustled with pedestrians navigating around parked trucks making morning deliveries. At the corner, a man selling stale obwarzanki pretzel rings that no one had the desire or coins to buy anymore eyed her curiously. Her skin prickled. Loitering much longer would arouse suspicion. She did not have time to search endlessly for the café and dared not ask someone on the street for fear of provoking questions. Finally, she walked down Florianska Street, which ended a hundred meters farther at the remnants of the medieval stone wall that had once surrounded the city. A decorative wrought-iron cluster of stars jutted out above one of the doorways, signaling the café below.

  Looking down the stairway, she hesitated. Were such places even open this early in the day? She walked down the stone steps, holding the wall so as not to slip. The windowless brick cellar had been made into a café, with a half-dozen tables set at haphazard angles and a crudely hewn oak bar at the back of the room. Candlelight flickered long shadows against the walls, giving it the appearance of evening. A scrawny Christmas tree lilted in the corner. She lingered by the stairs uncertainly. There were no restaurants in Biekowice—people bought food at market or grew it or killed it and took it to their own homes to cook and eat. She marveled now at the way the handful of patrons sat among one another, each cluster or pair having its own conversation as though the tables on either side did not exist.