Gabriek’s never done this before.
Stayed out all afternoon and half the evening.
The argument we had this morning when I got back was the worst ever. Even three kilos of powdered milk didn’t calm Gabriek down.
Maybe I should have lied when he asked me where I’d been and what I’d been doing. But Gabriek and I have never lied to each other. So I told him about the art theft.
He was furious.
He opened a bottle of cabbage vodka and drank most of it.
Then he went out.
With his gun.
I’m terrified he’s going to do something very dangerous. Like try to get the paintings back from Doctor Lipzyk. Who very likely has a gun himself because Anya must have picked up the habit from somewhere.
Or even worse, Gabriek might go and see Dimmi to apologise and return his lock.
Dimmi doesn’t need a gun. Dimmi could tie Gabriek’s gun barrel into a knot. Round Gabriek’s neck.
As well as worrying about these things, I’m worrying about Anya’s illness.
According to the books in Doctor Lipzyk’s library, there are a lot of illnesses that cause vomiting. Some of them get better in a few days, but some of them are fatal.
What’s that?
Clattering against the window?
Hail?
Can’t be, it’s not raining.
There it is again. Somebody’s throwing stuff at our window.
Nobody knows we’re here, so it must be Gabriek.So drunk he’s forgotten our secret knock. Probably forgotten where the ladder’s hidden too.
I hesitate. This racket could wake Pavlo. Should I slide his cot roof shut to muffle his yells?
No point with all the noise Gabriek’s making.
I go over to the window and peek out. Over on next door’s roof is a figure, arms waving frantically.
The moon comes out and it’s not Gabriek.
It’s Anya.
I stare at her.
How does she know where we live?
No time to worry about that now because she’s shouting loudly enough for the whole street to hear.
‘Shhhh,’ I yell.
It’s the loudest noise I’ve ever made in this hideout.
Pavlo wakes up and starts crying. I move towards him, then turn back to the window.
What did Anya just shout?
‘Felix,’ she yells again. ‘Let me in. It’s Gabriek. He’s been shot.’
I don’t let her in.
I bundle Pavlo up and swing us both down on the ladder and meet her in the street.
‘What happened?’ I say.
‘Come on,’ she says.
We hurry down the street. I don’t even know where we’re going.
‘How badly is he hurt?’ I ask.
‘He’s alive,’ says Anya. ‘But he’s bleeding badly. He was shot in the leg. The boys are bringing him. But they can’t move him quickly, so I came on ahead.’
‘Who shot him?’ I say.
I must have been wrong about Dimmi not needing a gun.
‘Gogol,’ says Anya.
I stumble and almost drop Pavlo. Anya reaches out to take him, but I shake my head. I’m not fainting, just sick with worry. How could anybody be shot by Gogol and still be alive?
‘Are you sure he’s just wounded?’ I say.
Anya nods.
‘Gabriek shot Gogol first,’ she says. ‘Wounded Gogol in the arm, that’s what I heard, and Gogol fired back before his men dragged him away.’
‘How do you know all this?’ I say.
‘I’ve got friends,’ says Anya, giving me a look. ‘Unlike some people.’
Gabriek is sprawled in the cart, the one we used for the paintings.
Vladek and Bolek and the other gang boys are wheeling him carefully towards our place.
‘That’s all I need,’ croaks Gabriek when he sees me. ‘An amateur doctor.’
He’s gripping his rifle like there are still people he needs to shoot.
I can see he’s still drunk. Which is just as well. I learned working with Doctor Zajak that alcohol dulls pain, and Gabriek’s leg is bleeding a lot.
I give Pavlo to Anya and climb onto the cart and tear my medical bag into strips and tie them round the top of Gabriek’s leg.
They slow the bleeding, but not much.
‘Quick,’ I say. ‘He needs surgery.’
When we’re close to our place, I tell the boys to stop.
‘I’ll take him,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’
I heave Gabriek off the cart. He’s wobbly on his feet. But he can walk if I prop him up.
I wave the gang boys away. They understand. They know about security. They swing the cart round and head off.
‘Me too?’ says Anya.
I look at her. She’s holding Pavlo. I can’t carry him and help Gabriek.
‘I’d appreciate your help,’ I say.
‘Only if you think about something,’ she says. ‘The business with the paintings. How maybe you can’t see when people are trying to help you.’
Gabriek and I struggle up the ladder.
Anya follows with Pavlo.
Halfway up, while we’re having a rest and I’m looking anxiously at Gabriek’s leg, Gabriek sees Anya.
‘She shouldn’t be here,’ he says. ‘Why is she here?’
I’ve been thinking about it.
Anya didn’t have to get involved in this. The friend who saw the shoot-out told her that Gogol was screaming out death threats as his men carried him away. How he’s going to kill Gabriek and me and Pavlo and everyone we’ve ever met.
Anya didn’t have to put herself at risk for me again. There aren’t any paintings involved this time.
I wait till we get to the top of the ladder and I have enough breath to speak. I put my mouth close to Gabriek’s ear.
‘She’s our friend,’ I say.
, I hope, Anya will let me help her.
She’s been very kind tonight, looking after Pavlo while I fix up Gabriek.
She helped me with the clean and heat too, which couldn’t have been easy because even a huge medical library doesn’t prepare you for the sight of veins and gristle after a bullet’s been dug out.
‘I’ll bring some proper disinfectant from my place tomorrow,’ she says. ‘And some penicillin.’
‘Thanks,’ I say.
We look at each other.
Now I’ve got Gabriek stitched up and bandaged and he’s sleeping off the vodka, we can talk.
‘What is it?’ I say quietly. ‘Your thing that hasn’t got a cure.’
I can tell from her face there’s something she wants to tell me.
But she doesn’t.
‘It’s complicated,’ she says. ‘We’ll talk about it another time. It’s very late. I have to go.’
I want her to stay, to let me help her for once, to take a risk and trust me.
But I don’t say anything.
It’s probably best for her sake that she goes. I’m not a fully trained doctor yet and she’s got one at her place who is.
Anyway, I’ve got somebody else who needs my help. And something else very important to think about.
A decision to make.
A very difficult decision.
Pavlo is asleep on my chest.
I’ve been lying here in bed for hours, awake.
Thinking. Making the decision. Cancelling it. Making it again.
Oh little bundle, I wish I didn’t have to do it.
But I do.
When you became my baby, I swore to keep you safe. And I thought I could. Me and Gabriek are good at hiding, so I thought you’d be safe with us.
I was wrong.
I hoped Gogol would forget about us, but he hasn’t. I hoped he’d give up wanting to kill us, but he won’t now, not ever.
And our security isn’t working. Anya found us, and if she can, Gogol can.
I know what you’d be thinking, little bundle, if you were awake.
Why don’t
I go and kill Gogol to keep you safe?
I’ve been asking myself that all night.
Pavlo, I’m no good at killing. I’m a boy who spent two years in a hole and six months in a forest and I’m good at mending things and sometimes mending people but I’m hopeless at killing and Gogol is so good at it.
So even if I tried, you wouldn’t be safe.
Which is why I have to take you away. To your people. To people who will love you and care for you.
Even though it will break my heart.
So you’ll be safe.
‘Ukraine?’
Gabriek blinks in the dawn light.
He groans and sinks back down onto his bed.
I can see him struggling through the pain of his leg to understand what I’ve just told him.
‘Pavlo will be safer with his own people,’ I say. ‘I’m going to take him over the border into Ukraine and find a kind family who will love him and give him a home.’
Gabriek struggles up onto his elbows again.
Even in this light, which is the dullest, greyest, bleakest dawn light ever, I can see how pale he is.
‘Pavlo’s ours,’ says Gabriek.
I feel the same.
Which is why this is so hard.
‘He’s not really ours,’ I say. ‘Not for ever. We just borrowed him for a while to do our best for him. Which is what we still have to do.’
Gabriek looks at Pavlo, who is in his cot, sucking his toes.
What Ukrainian family wouldn’t love a baby who can do that?
‘I forbid you to go,’ says Gabriek. ‘It’s too far. And too risky.’
I was worried Gabriek would say that.
‘Gabriek,’ I say, ‘when you decided to protect me, to do your best to keep me safe, you wouldn’t have let anyone talk you out of it, would you? Or let anyone make you do something you didn’t think was best. Would you?’
Gabriek glares at me.
‘I’d have listened,’ he says. ‘To someone older and wiser than me.’
I shake my head.
‘No you wouldn’t,’ I say quietly. ‘Because you’d made a vow. To me. And to your own loving heart.’
Gabriek glares at me for a long time.
Then slowly the anger leaves his face and there are just tears.
Tears happen a lot to people who drink alcohol. But not just to them, because my eyes are wet too.
Gabriek is staring at his bandaged leg. I can see that at this moment he hates his leg.
‘I can’t go with you,’ he says.
‘I know,’ I say.
Gabriek hesitates.
I can see he wants to say something else.
‘Felix,’ he says quietly. ‘You know it won’t be easy, don’t you?’
I nod.
But I’m more worried about Gabriek.
‘We have to get you to a safe place too,’ I say. ‘Somewhere Gogol can’t find you.’
Gabriek shakes his head.
He reaches down to the floor and picks up his gun.
‘Let’s agree to trust each other,’ he says. ‘I’ll trust you to come back safely. You trust me to be here when you do.’
I can’t argue with that.
‘You should get started,’ says Gabriek. ‘Before Gogol’s trigger arm starts working again.’
‘Anya will be here today,’ I say. ‘She’s bringing medical stuff for your leg. She’s a bit secretive, but you can trust her too.’
Gabriek nods.
‘The border’s east,’ he says. ‘Less than a day away by train. You should be back in a few days.’
‘Three,’ I say.
I don’t say I haven’t got a clue how I’m going to get me and Pavlo onto a train. All the trains are controlled by the military authorities. I’ve heard they shoot people who try to jump on without a ticket.
Gabriek beckons me towards him.
I bend over his bed.
With a grimace he pulls his wedding ring off his finger and puts it into my hand.
It’s gold. It’s the ring that married him to Genia. It’s the most precious thing he owns.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Thanks, but it’s OK. I’ll manage.’
Gabriek closes my hand over the ring and holds it tight.
We look at each other. I can see he’s not going to change his mind.
He gives my hand a final squeeze.
‘I’m proud of you, Felix,’ he says.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
I go over to the cot and pick Pavlo up and put him on Gabriek’s chest.
I’m proud of Gabriek too. It’s not easy saying goodbye when most of the people in your life have already gone.
, I hope, I’ll find someone who’ll swap a wedding ring for a train ticket.
That’s how the black market works.
I hope.
This station is more chaotic than food-drop square and the military welfare office put together.
War is a bit like blind man’s buff, little bundle. Everyone ends up all over the place and they all want to get back to where they belong.
Which is what I’m trying to do for you, Pavlo.
All this noise must be scary. Come on, let’s go back outside so I can give you a drink.
We push our way through the crowd, wild-eyed travellers bashing into us on all sides. I’m glad Gabriek made these new bags so strong. And I’m glad I’ve got Pavlo in the front bag, where I can protect him against my chest.
Outside I sit on one of the stone lions that used to be on the roof when the station had a roof.
The poor creature’s lying in the street now, most of him rubble.
I take the rucksack off my back and find Pavlo’s bottle and start feeding him. I do what Mum used to do to me. Hum a tune. It seems to make babies suck better.
It also stops me worrying about whether we’ll get a ticket and whether we’ll get on a train without being shot.
No it doesn’t.
Come on, Pavlo, drink faster. We need to get back in there before the tickets run out and my plan falls in a bigger heap than this poor lion.
‘Felix,’ yells a voice.
You know how when somebody wants to kill you and he’s on your mind the whole time and you hear somebody shouting your name and you know it’s him?
Even when it doesn’t sound like him?
I grab Pavlo and the rucksack and run back into the station.
‘Stop,’ yells the voice.
I know I shouldn’t look back because it’ll slow me down, but I do, just quickly, glancing over my shoulder, searching the crowd for a black leather jacket and an angry face and a gun. I don’t see any of those.
I see a pink coat.
Anya hurries over, out of breath.
‘I’m coming with you,’ she says.
I stare at her.
‘Don’t argue,’ she says. ‘Anyway, you wouldn’t make it onto the train without these.’
She’s carrying a bundle. Something wrapped up in a bedsheet. Lots of things, because they clink and rattle when she moves.
‘Lipzyk’s best cutlery,’ she says. ‘He’ll choke when he sees they’ve gone.’ She gives a bitter laugh. ‘It’s his lucky day. Having me steal them rather than stab him with them.’
I want to ask several questions all at once, but I can’t get the words out in the right order. Mostly because I’ve just noticed Anya’s eye.
Dark and bruised and swollen.
Anya sees me looking.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ she mutters. ‘We’ve got a train to catch.’
The hardest part is getting to the train.
In the end we have to resort to violence.
Anya takes a fork out of her bundle and every time a person in front of us won’t move, she gives him or her a little stab in the buttock.
‘Don’t look,’ I say to Pavlo. ‘We’re only doing it because the world’s gone mad.’
People don’t like it, and a couple of them take a swipe at us, but one way or another they
shift out of the way.
Then a horrible thought hits me.
‘What about Gabriek?’ I say, grabbing Anya’s arm. ‘You’re meant to be looking after Gabriek.’
‘Vladek’s doing it,’ she says, pulling away. ‘He’s good at looking after sick people, remember?’
I don’t point out that the last time he did it, the person died. And I try not to think about what Gabriek will say when another outsider turns up at the hideout.
We finally make it to the ticket gate, and suddenly things move fast.
Anya chooses a ticket inspector with a greedy face. We have a lot of choices. The armed soldiers backing them up don’t look like they spend a lot of time donating to orphanages either.
It’s amazing what you can do with a couple of fistfuls of solid silver knives and forks. I’ve got Gabriek’s ring hidden in my hand just in case, but we don’t need it.
Next thing we’re hurrying along the platform, trying to find a carriage that isn’t already packed with people. So far they all are. Windows full of faces squashed against the glass like preserved turnips.
This carriage is crowded, but at least it’s not as crowded as the train the Nazis put me on. Plus the windows are a big improvement.
And the toilet, but I don’t think many of us are going to get to use it. The four or five people in there won’t want to give up their space.
The train gives a lurch, but carries on chugging.
At least in this corridor we don’t have to worry about falling over. There’s no room for that with so many people squashed together.
Sorry I keep wriggling, Pavlo. The straps on this rucksack are killing me.
‘Why don’t you take it off?’ says Anya.
I give her a look. Where would I put it? The luggage racks have got soldiers sitting on them and the floor is covered with feet.
‘What have you got in there, anyway?’ says Anya.
I answer her without thinking.
‘A folding umbrella that Gabriek invented,’ I say. ‘Powdered milk, water, parsnip bread, pork fat, a compass, and a bottle of cabbage vodka to give the family we find.’
Eyes flick towards us on all sides.
That was silly. I shouldn’t have mentioned food and vodka out loud in here. Or a convenient way of keeping the rain off. It rains a lot where this train’s going.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ says Anya loudly.