The Winter Guest

  Sam held her down firmly. There was pain in his eyes, too, as he took in the helpless girl and her nearly certain fate. But he shook his head, signaling that they could not afford to make their presence known to anyone. “It’s no good. We’ve got no way to help her and we can’t carry another child. We have to keep going.”

  He was right, of course. Once they might have shared shelter and clothing. Now they had no assistance to offer, and they could not risk their own safety for strangers. But Helena remembered the family she had seen arrested in Kraków, the promise to herself that next time she would do something to help. “She’s a child,” Helena persisted, starting to unbutton her own coat. How could they leave the girl to die in the cold?

  Sam gestured downward. “So are they.” Helena started to argue, but the point was moot: the girl had disappeared into the trees. What had happened, Helena wondered, to separate the child from her parents? She needed someone to tell her to wear the scarf, the only warm thing that she had. Helena reached up to touch Dorie’s head and drew Karolina closer to her. The baby was limp, she noticed. She held Karolina’s motionless body aloft, panic rising. Had she gone too far in silencing her? “Karolina!” she whispered fiercely. She pinched her cheek, and a moment later, the baby began to move. Helena went slack with relief.

  Sam was tugging her to her feet with uncharacteristic roughness. “How much farther?”

  “A few kilometers. But, Sam...” She pulled away. “If the girl was running from danger, then maybe we shouldn’t continue this way.”

  He hoisted Dorie once more. “We don’t have a choice, do we?”

  Helena stepped ahead of him, starting through the woods once more. “This way, and then we have to go across a small bridge...” A sudden clattering burst out ahead, illuminating the forest in ghostly white. She jumped back, covering Karolina’s mouth, muffling her inevitable squeal. Then she turned, following her instinct to run in the other direction. She choked back a scream as another round of gunfire lit up the trees like skeletons.

  Sam grabbed her and began pulling her sideways into the brush once more. Helena stumbled to the ground. Pain shot through her leg. Her cry rang out in the stillness, inviting someone to discover them but it was muffled by a third round of gunfire. She lay on the ground, half atop Karolina, paralyzed by terror and pain, wondering if she had been shot. Had they walked right into some sort of fighting?

  When the gunfire did not come again, Sam crouched low beside her and rolled her over. “Hold this,” he said, producing a lighter from his pocket and flicking it so a small orange flame appeared, casting a faint glow. He handed the lighter to her, then pulled up her skirt, heedless in his haste of any propriety. A large branch with a sharp pointed end had pierced Helena’s thigh when she fell. Sam’s forehead wrinkled with worry. “I have to get this out,” he said decisively. Before she could respond, he pulled the stick from her leg. She bit her lip, stifling the urge to scream. The children looked on, wide-eyed.

  “I’m sorry,” Sam said. “It had to be done.” He swiftly cleaned the wound with snow, then took the scarf from around his neck and wrapped her leg in it. But his brow was still furrowed. “We need to get you somewhere to have that examined before it becomes infected. When you get to Czechoslovakia...”

  “We...” she corrected.

  “Yes, of course,” he said quickly. “We need to get some alcohol on that cut, even if it is just liquor. It will burn like hell, excuse my language, but you don’t have a choice. Can you stand?”

  Helena rose with effort, struggling not to cry out against the burning pain that shot through her leg. “What was that? Some sort of battle?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. It could have been a skirmish but the shooting was only coming from one direction.”

  “Michal...Ruth.” Helena started back toward the river.

  But Sam grabbed her and drew her close, pressing her to his chest. “You can’t,” he whispered. “Think of the children. Anyway, Michal likely went in the other direction toward the city. There’s no reason to think they’ll encounter any fighting.”

  He was right. Ruth would have gone in the other direction, following Michal toward the city. But Ruth was not as strong as she, did not have Sam to guide her. How would they ever get to the station?

  “We can’t keep going that way, though.”

  “No.” She considered the terrain ahead, trying to think of an alternate route. The path that had just been cut off was the only way she knew to get to the station. “Let’s just keep on through the trees,” she suggested. He eyed her dubiously. “We’ll have to find a way around.”

  Sam reached down for Karolina, who still sat on the icy ground. Helena took Dorie’s hand and steered them slightly south. She forged a path through the trees, trying to ignore the burning pain that seared upward from her thigh with every step. As she breathed deeply, Tata’s face appeared suddenly in her mind. It was as if he were leading her now, showing her the route as she turned instinctively through the winding trees. She held her hand out in front of her to clear the branches so they did not scrape against Karolina, a padded ball beneath the blanket in Sam’s arms.

  The birch forest ended abruptly at an open field like the one they had crossed earlier, leading to the mill and river. But they were well south of the bridge they needed to cross, still unable to reach it without nearing the gunfire they had heard. The sky was lightening, making it easier to see and at the same time urging haste. Sam turned to her with a desperation in his once-confident eyes that scared her more than anything had so far. He was looking to her, she realized, for the answer. She turned away, ashamed that she had failed him.

  “We need to get downstream,” she said suddenly, gazing at the water. “There’s another bridge a few miles south, but if we walk we’ll never make the train.”

  “Look.” He pointed. Several meters away stood a small shed by the riverbank. Piled alongside it were the dinghies used by the millers to ferry goods downstream. But the open field still stood between them and the river. “I’ll go first,” he whispered. Not waiting for an answer, he dashed across the field, his body doubled over Karolina protectively.

  As he reached the other side, a shot rang out. They had been spotted. Watching Sam and Karolina dive for the cover of the bank, Helena’s heart stopped. How had they come to be here, running from gunfire through the forest like hunted animals? Mere hours ago they had been safe and warm in bed. Perhaps Ruth had been right. She’d dragged them all from the safety of home, only to die in the cold.

  A second later, Sam’s arm rose from the brush, gesturing to her and she knew she had no choice. She lifted Dorie up and buried her as deeply in her arms as she could. “I’ve got you,” she soothed as she felt the child stiffen with fear. Helena hunched over and ran despite the searing pain in her wounded leg. A bullet whizzed past her head and she waited to feel the pain. But there was nothing and she kept going. Sam had risen from the bank and stepped out to divert any fire toward him. She reached him and he yanked her and Dorie toward the water’s edge. The ground was softer beneath their feet here, giving off a damp peat smell. The river was beginning to freeze, fine sheets of ice forming on the surface. Sam went to the dinghies and dragged one toward the bank. It was no more than a raft, really, some logs roped together, cracks filled with hardened pine sap. It was not intended for so many passengers, but it was the best they could do.

  He set the raft into the water, holding it steady as Helena climbed on.

  Sam handed the children to her, his movements jerky with haste. “It’s all right,” she soothed, feeling Dorie’s body tighten once more.

  Sam pushed them from the bank, soaking one leg in the icy water. “Stay low,” he whispered.

  Helena clutched the children close as Sam leaped aboard, causing the raft to wobble slightly. “Careful,” she cautioned. None of them would survive even a f
ew minutes in the freezing water. She pressed them flat to the raft and placed herself atop them, bracing for another shot to ring out. But as the current carried them, the air grew still. Whoever had fired at them seemed not to have followed.

  They began to drift sideways downstream. Tree branches bowed above them beneath the weight of snow and icicles that hung from them in an arch like jagged, menacing teeth. A piece of discarded burlap lay on the raft. Helena covered the children with it, then draped one hand protectively across them. She began to paddle with the other hand, the water biting into her skin until it went numb and she could no longer feel the cold. Sam paddled on the far side, the two of them moving in tandem, willing the raft through the icy water.

  Farther along now, the hills on either side of the river grew steeper and the trees gave way to sheer rock face, worn by the water that had coursed through the gorge for centuries. She had been here once as a child on a summer rafting trip so distant she might have imagined it. The current moved them more quickly now, pushed by the heavy fall rains and snow.

  “There!” Helena pointed, spying the break in the gorge that would bring them to the bridge, but the current threatened to hurtle them beyond their target. She paddled harder, steering them toward the bank. Sam reached for a branch that jutted out, trying to pull them into the shore. The raft banged into a rock and lurched suddenly, sending him flailing into the water.

  “Sam!” Helena cried too loudly, forgetting the risk of being detected once more. She could not reach him without letting go of the children. Desperately, she steered the raft in his direction. It was no use—they were losing him.

  Sam reached his arms high above the surface of the water, clutching the edge of the raft, and hoisted himself up. It wobbled precariously under his weight and she clung to the children desperately, willing the wood craft to level. Sam lay across the raft, gasping for air. Helena moved to dry his face with the fabric of her skirt, but he waved her away. “You’ll freeze, too.”

  Helena looked at the shore. They had come so much farther than they should have and they had to find a place to pull in on the far bank before they were carried past the navigable part of the river to the shoals that would tear the raft to pieces.

  Sam sat up, seeming to sense her urgency. “There.” He indicated a narrow break in the rocks on the far shore. They paddled furiously for several minutes, seeming to stand still against the current. “This isn’t working,” she began. Sam rose to his knees, causing the raft to tilt dangerously. As they neared the bank, Sam leaped off, grimacing at his re-immersion into the frigid water that reached his calves as he pulled them in.

  Abandoning the raft, Helena and Sam carried the children up the steep bank. They pushed forward for the cover of the trees, the final swath of forest that separated them from the train station. Sam’s labored breathing matched her own as they navigated the unfamiliar slope.

  They reached the top of the hill. The land here was not even, as Helena had expected. Instead, it dropped off into a steep gorge. As they caught their breath, Helena looked down into the bottom of the chasm. She could see something stacked there, snow-covered and piled higher than her head if she’d been standing beside it. At first she thought it was additional rafts, broken ones perhaps, piled high for scrap or repair. She took a step closer to the edge, stumbling and nearly slipping down the hill. Sam grabbed her. “Helena, no.” His voice was terse with caution.

  They were not boats, she realized looking closer, but bodies. A pile of corpses filled the gaping hole in the ground. Sam turned swiftly away so that Dorie could not see, but Helena stood transfixed. It was not just the elderly and infirm as it had been in the hospital, but people of all ages, women and children, lifeless and frozen into the earth. They were naked, stripped of their glasses and their clothes and the possessions that linked them to the outside life they had once known, meshed together arms and breasts and hair. Even without their clothing, Helena knew that they were Jews.

  “Darling, don’t...” Sam drew her close, trying to shield her view, but it was too late. She pulled away from him, unable to look away or deny the truth any longer. It was not just about labor camps and ghettos, she realized then. This was about the shooting they had heard, why the little girl was running away, what Sam had been trying to save them from. Had he known the full truth? She had faulted the Americans for failing to see. But she was no better living just miles from the destruction and burying her head in the sand. This was no longer just pity, though—the fate of those poor souls might well have been their own, and still could be. Helena sunk to her knees. She simply could not go a step farther.

  She looked back across the horizon, thinking of her brother and sister, now miles away. Though she had never before believed in God she found herself looking up at the sky with more faith than she had ever felt, asking Him and their parents and whoever else might be up there to help them make it through.

  Then she stood. For Dorie and Karolina’s sake, she had to keep going. “Sam?” She turned to find the space behind her empty. Sam, too, had crumpled to his knees, shaking.

  “We’re not going to make it,” he said hollowly.

  Helena was flooded with panic. Sam was her strength and to see him like this was unfathomable.

  Then steeling herself, she took his hand and knelt before him. It was no less terrible for her, but she forced herself to focus on the path ahead. “Don’t say that. We can do this. You owe me a dance, remember? I’d like a trip to the seaside, too. Come.” She helped him to his feet, careful not to show her fear at how Sam’s wet clothes had already begun to freeze. It was her turn to be the strong one now. She peered through the trees in the direction of the station. Though it surely stood just a kilometer or so to the other side of the forest, it seemed a lifetime away.

  Sam and the girls watched her, helpless and expectant, unable to make it on their own. Helena took off her scarf and fashioned a sling for the baby. “Get on my back,” she instructed Dorie, who eyed her skeptically as she knelt. When Dorie complied, Helena straightened. “Don’t let go.” Dorie nodded in silent assent. Helena staggered under the weight of the two children and the searing pain in her leg. She stumbled and started to say that she could not do it. Then she sensed Alek’s presence, showing her how to be strong. Energy surged through her.

  But Sam still knelt motionless. With her free hand, Helena reached down and touched his shoulder. He looked up, eyes wild and desperate. Her fingers cupped his chin. “We can do this.” Seeming to draw strength from her, he stood uncertainly. “Come.” Lacing her fingers in Sam’s, Helena half led, half dragged him through the forest. The station was just ahead now, a lone light in the woods.

  25

  Ruth started up the hill, stepping with great effort through the snow, which soaked through her stockings at midcalf. But after only a few minutes, she stopped, panting and weary in that way she had been in recent days. She looked up hopefully, but saw that she had only gone a few meters. The cottage was still near, and the path ahead through the forest long and steep. Suddenly the magnitude of the task she had taken on unfurled before her. She had volunteered from a place so deep that she scarcely recognized it, a need to redeem herself for all that she had done to hurt Helena, for assuming the worst about her sister and all of the consequences that flowed from that. But now she faltered, remembering how difficult the journey through the woods would be. She had only gone as far as the chapel last time and that was almost too much. She could not fathom how to find Michal. If she did find him, she would have to tell him the awful truth about Mama in order to convince him to leave. And even if she managed that, how would they possibly reach the others?

  Snow began to fall gently around her. Ruth turned back over her shoulder, seized with the urge to call Helena for help as she had done so many times over the years. If she ran after Helena and the others now, she could still catch them and go with them. Helena would understand. Sh
e would concede that her sister had been right, that she was not strong enough to make the journey. Surely Helena would agree that they should switch places. But Helena and Sam had already crossed the field and disappeared into the woods with the younger children. Ruth was too late.

  Sam. As she forced herself to press onward, she relived the moment when he’d collapsed onto the cottage floor the previous night. Ruth had stared at him in disbelief. Sam could have saved himself and fled for good. Instead, he had returned to the danger. He had risked it all...for Helena. After, when they’d stood awkwardly on opposite sides of the room, Ruth feared the tension between them would be so palpable that Helena would guess what had happened. But Sam’s face had remained blank as he addressed her, as though meeting Ruth for the first time. It was as if, in his joy at reuniting with Helena, he had simply forgotten.

  Sam had spoken to the children of a dog. But it wasn’t the dog who kept him company here, she thought, remembering the frozen mongrel down by the river. No, Sam was talking about one back home, and the life they would all have in America. Ruth could picture it then, Sam and Helena happily married, a home for the children—a picture complete without her. He would make, she realized with sadness and longing for all that could not be, a wonderful father.

  From below there came the sound of a vehicle. Ruth spun around once more. Was someone coming for her? A military jeep emerged into view through the trees and drove directly to the cottage below. She wondered if it was the policeman who had come again. But three men emerged from the jeep, and even from this distance she could tell their uniforms were German military. Fear gripped her. It was no coincidence that they had come to the house now, so soon after the family had gone. No, the neighbors must have seen them slip away and reported them—or perhaps someone had betrayed Sam.

  Waves of recrimination rose in her mind: if Helena had not found Sam and he had not come back for her none of this would have happened.