Judith rose from her chair, picked up a file and opened it, only to close it a moment later. She sat down again, fiddled with her pen and stared out of the window. Three English nurses were walking from their dormitory across the courtyard, and their bright young voices bounced off the walls. Judith stood up and paced up and down her office. How could it happen that just as she’d received the gift she hadn’t even dared to wish for, it was snatched away?
She slumped in her chair. The night they had met in the kitchen, Elzunia had talked about the man she had been in love with for the past six years whom she knew only by his code name, Eagle. Like a maths student who tries desperately to find a way of making an equation produce the desired answer, Judith considered every possibility in the hope of arriving at a different solution, but each time the basic premise defeated her. If Elzunia had given him the cigarette case, then Eagle was Adam. She knew that he had never parted with the case, that he’d kept it with him even during his aerial missions. The first night they had spent together, he described the girl who had given him the case as extraordinary. She had been fooling herself all along. It was Elzunia he loved.
The laughing voices of the young nurses in the yard irritated her and she slammed the window shut so hard that the glass rattled. What a fool she’d been, imagining that he cared for her when all the time it was this girl he longed for.
For the rest of the day, nurses knocked on Judith’s door to ask for instructions, housekeepers requested keys, the chef threatened to resign, and doctors discussed treatment regimes for problem patients, and she dealt with them one by one, hardly aware of what she was doing. Inside she felt as stiff and frozen as an iceberg.
The only person who noticed the change in her was Kathleen, who came to discuss Adam’s progress, a subject Judith would have preferred to avoid.
‘You look worn out, love. Shall I bring you a cup of tea?’ she said in her Irish brogue as she looked searchingly into Matron’s face.
Judith shook her head. Tea couldn’t solve her problems. But a few minutes later, Kathleen reappeared with a tray.
‘Come on, now, it’ll do you the world of good,’ she coaxed as she poured the steaming tea.
As she settled back and sipped the tea, Judith felt her spirits reviving. Why had she been so quick to give up on the man she wanted so much? Almost three years had passed since he and Elzunia had last met, and in that time everything had changed. He was no longer an Underground courier, Poland was no longer independent, the world had moved on, and Elzunia now had two children to care for. For all she knew, their feelings for each other might have changed as well.
Judith thought about the night she had spent with Adam in the London hotel and her blood quickened. Why had she assumed he didn’t care for her? Her mind began to concoct a wild scheme. Elzunia didn’t know yet who the patient was. Perhaps she could find some pretext to transfer her before she found out. The British Red Cross was desperate for experienced nurses. With Elzunia out of the picture, nothing would stand in her way. She would give her an excellent reference of course, and recommend her for a senior position. After all, didn’t they say all was fair in love and war?
Pleased with her solution, Judith sat back and glanced out the window. But as she watched Elzunia walking across the yard with her arms around the children, skipping and singing with them, she felt sick. She couldn’t base her happiness on deceit. A wave of compassion for Elzunia swept over her. After all she had suffered and all she had lost, she deserved some happiness in her life. And if Adam represented that happiness, she had no right to stand in their way.
Sitting in Judith’s office, Elzunia’s eyes widened with disbelief. It must be her bad English. She must have misunderstood what Matron was saying. But Matron kept repeating the same words over and over, a little louder each time, as though increased volume might ensure her comprehension.
‘The new patient is the man from the Polish Underground.’
‘Is not possible,’ Elzunia insisted. ‘He steal cigarette case.’
Judith stood up. ‘Come with me.’
As soon as Adam saw Elzunia, he struggled to sit up. She was taller and thinner than he remembered, and her eyes were even larger and more luminous than before, but she had the same defiant tilt of the head and air of unshakeable determination that had impressed him in the Ghetto. What was her name? Ela? Eulalia? Then he remembered.
‘Elzunia!’ he cried out. ‘I can’t believe it’s you! What on earth are you doing here? Look, I still have the cigarette case you gave me.’
She tried to speak but could only stammer. She stared at his bandaged face that bore no resemblance to the man she had dreamed about for so long. How could it possibly be him? And yet he had recognised her.
‘I’ve often thought about you,’ he was saying. ‘Especially during the Ghetto Uprising.’
Although he spoke in Polish, Judith could hear the affection in his tone. It felt as though someone had picked up her heart and hurled it to the ground.
‘I’ve thought about you too,’ Elzunia whispered.
There was so much she wanted to tell him and so many questions she wanted to ask but she couldn’t get her thoughts together.
‘Does it hurt?’ she asked.
‘Only if I move or cough. Sister said the bandages can come off my face tomorrow.’
She was trying not to stare at him. ‘I can’t believe it’s you either,’ she said and blushed. Words were so inadequate.
She returned later that afternoon, lugging a gramophone and some records in brown paper sleeves. Placing one on the turntable, she cranked the handle, raised the arm from its cradle, and gently lowered the needle onto the edge of the disc. A moment later the sound of Paderewski playing Chopin nocturnes filled the ward. They listened in reverent silence and Elzunia felt that the tenderness of the music expressed her feelings more profoundly than words ever could. Beneath the delicate ecstasy of the poignant Nocturne in C, she heard a lament and a palpitating sense of loss. She looked down to blink away her tears. That was the nocturne she had heard in Andrzej’s apartment the last night they spent together. As she touched his hand, she felt sadness spreading through her veins. Our dreams betray and deceive us, especially when they are answered, she thought. When she had met Andrzej, it was Adam’s embrace she longed for. Now, with an intensity that made her dizzy, she wished it was Andrzej lying there.
It was at this moment that Judith walked past the Intensive Care ward and knew that her world had changed forever. Jealousy scorched her as she took in the sight of their faces so close together, and she regretted not having sent Elzunia away. The girl stood between her and the only man she had ever wanted, the only man who had ever cared about her, and perhaps still would, if Elzunia hadn’t reappeared in his life.
The bandages had come off but when Adam looked in the mirror, he hardly recognised himself. He was looking at a puffy face with hardly any contours, a nose that had splayed across his face, purple bruises under his eyes and a swollen jaw that looked like a severe case of mumps.
‘You’re no oil painting, love, that’s for sure,’ Kathleen said as she surveyed him. Then she chuckled. ‘Picasso, maybe.’
He couldn’t wait to tell Judith about his reunion with Elzunia and was disappointed that she hadn’t come to see him all day. As the day wore on, he grew increasingly impatient to see her, and show her that the bandages had been removed. Restless, he tried to find reasons for her absence and concluded that she must be dealing with emergencies and would come as soon as she had time. Elzunia, on the other hand, had put her head around the door many times, and each time he saw her, he marvelled at the serendipity that had brought him to the hospital where she and Judith were both working. War usually separated people but it had brought the three of them together in a way that was miraculous.
In her office, Judith was tearing herself apart as she struggled with the longing to see him and the determination to avoid visiting his ward. She couldn’t bear the thought that he might feel sorry for her, or try to make excuses. To save her pride, she decided to keep away but it took all her strength to keep that resolve.
Kathleen knocked on the door to report that the Mystery Man — she still referred to him that way because she couldn’t get her tongue around his unpronounceable surname — had had his bandages and dressings removed.
‘He’s been askin’ for you, Matron,’ she said. ‘Every time I go in.’
Judith made a dismissive gesture. ‘I haven’t got time,’ she said, and continued writing her report, her knuckles white as she gripped the pen.
From his bed, Adam occasionally caught sight of Judith walking past on her rounds. He was baffled by her continued absence and the fact that she seemed to avert her face and hasten her step whenever she passed the Intensive Care ward. Women were fickle and unfathomable and often played hard to get, but he had believed that Judith was different. She’d been overcome with joy at seeing him at first, but now, for some inexplicable reason, she was ignoring him.
After a few days, he managed to hobble along the corridor, leaning on crutches. Panting, he had to stop every few steps because the searing pain in his ribs brought tears to his eyes, but he gritted his teeth and kept going until he reached her office and tapped on the door with a crutch.
She caught her breath when she saw his scarred, bruised face, and restraining an impulse to stroke it, hurriedly looked away.
‘Sit down a minute, but I can’t talk long,’ she said crisply.
‘Judith, tell me what’s going on,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Perhaps you don’t realise that I’m running a hospital here, not a social club. I’m run off my feet from morning till night. I’m not just the head of nursing here. I’m the administrator, negotiator, welfare worker, counsellor and peacemaker. And I still don’t have enough thermometers or bed pans.’
He was staring at her. ‘I have never seen such a change in anyone.’
She toyed with a glass paperweight, not trusting herself to reply.
He hauled himself to his feet. At the door, he turned and gave her an icy look. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t waste any more of your time.’
The door closed behind him. She turned to the window and buried her face in her hands.