It’s a bright night, the moon full and low. The stars are so thick there are patches of sky that are almost white. It’s like when it begins to snow and the snow covers only parts of the ground. Jan is at one of the windows of his dormitory. He never tires of looking at the stars. When he was little, his father had taught him how to recognize some of the constellations. It was always easy to pick them out when his father was beside him to help. Now, alone, it’s not so simple. Jan bows his head. It’s so hard to think of his family and what has happened to them. Sometimes he thinks it’s a dream, and he’ll wake up safe at home one morning. He tried to explain that to Pawel once, and Pawel had looked at him in scorn.
“What rubbish. The sooner you learn that this is real, the better for you.”
Jan was sad at this. He’d hoped they could share in this fantasy, hoped that someone else would pretend it wasn’t real. He’d had dreams like this before, that hurt him, frightened him, but he had always woken up in the end, and he wanted to believe that this too could end with everything being better once more. Deep down, though, he knew Pawel was right, and that he had to face up to reality – and most times he could, but sometimes…
A cloud passes over the moon, pale-grey. It’s the first Jan’s seen for weeks; the spring weather has been surprisingly hot and dry. Now at last, it’s cool, cold really, and he shivers and returns to bed. Under the blanket he huddles into a ball, his hands in his armpits trying to warm himself. He thinks of the papers under his mattress that he knows will tell him where Lena is. It’s comforting to have something good to think about for a change. His eyes close, and in seconds he drops off, living a dream where he is once more at home and his parents are there to scold him.
Jan’s face is wet with tears when he wakes early to the sound of birdsong in the tree outside the window. He wipes them away with the edge of the sheet. He’d die rather than let the women see he’s been crying. It’s not time to get up yet; everyone else is asleep. He takes out the papers from beneath the mattress and tries again to read them, but he can’t. It’s the writing. He’s never been good at reading handwriting, and this is so strange compared to the way he was taught. Shaking his head, he puts them aside and waits for the bell that tells them it’s time to get up.
It’s mid-morning when the children are called to the front of the house. The officer, whose room Jan now knows so well, is there with Pawel at his side. Pawel is the colour of the porridge they are served for breakfast. The officer pushes him to his knees and addresses the little assembly of children. He speaks quickly in an accent that’s difficult to follow, but they get the gist. This lowly boy, disgusting animal, played a trick, and for that he will be treated like an animal. For the next two days he will be chained up in the garden and his food will be left in a dog bowl for him to eat like the animal he is. Jan bows his head. He can’t bear to look at Pawel. This is all his fault. He should tell them, take his punishment. When they are told to look on, he does so and mouths sorry to Pawel, who flicks his eyes to show he understands.
The two days pass, and Pawel is allowed to join them once more. Jan tries to get him alone, but the other Polish children are always with him, comforting him, passing him scraps of food they saved, for Pawel hasn’t eaten for the two days he’s been in chains. He refused to touch the food and water left for him in dog bowls. For this he has become a hero. They want to know why he played the trick on the officer, but he won’t tell them. Jan watches all this from a distance, happy to wait for a quiet time when they can talk.
“You all right?” Pawel is beside him as they wash the evening dishes.
Jan nods. “And you?”
“Take more than that to knock the stuffing out of me.”
“I’m so sorry,” whispers Jan.
“Don’t worry. I’m fine.” Pawel scrubs at a pot. “Did you get what you wanted?”
“Yes. It’s upstairs, underneath my mattress.”
“Thank Christ! I wouldn’t want to go through that again. What does it say?”
Jan looked at him. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I was hoping you’d be able to help me.”
“You chancer,” Pawel flicks him with some of the dirty dishwater, and they laugh, Jan harder than he has for some time. He’s so relieved Pawel doesn’t hate him.
Upstairs, in the half hour they have to themselves before bed, they find a corner away from the others and pore over the papers. Jan can barely control himself. He wants to know every word that Pawel is reading. Pawel is impatient with him, and tells him to find something else to do, because he’s just holding him back. Jan sits on his hands so he won’t flap, bites his tongue so he can’t speak. At last Pawel is ready.
“This paper,” he waves a creased sheet in front of him, “this is a letter of application to an adoption agency. It’s from a couple in Southern Germany. Here’s the address,” he reads it out, “Grunfeld Farm, Seeligstadt, near Dresden. Memorize it, because we’ll have to get rid of these papers before they find them on us.”
“And the rest? What do they say?”
“This is a form filled in by the couple. It tells you their names, dates of birth, when they got married, the names of their children and so on. This one is a copy of a letter to the couple. It tells them that they will be sent a little girl, Helena Schussel.”
“But that’s not my sister!”
“They must have changed her name to make her sound German. In the letter they say that she is an orphan from the north of Germany, Hamburg. Her father was a soldier who died on the Eastern Front, and her mother when a bomb dropped on her house. Burnt to death, it says here.”
Jan gapes at him. He cannot believe they would change his sister into a German.
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” says Pawel. “You know that’s what they’ve got planned for us all, or at least for the very young ones. For older ones like me…” He stops.
“What? What are they planning?”
“I don’t think anyone will adopt me. Not that I want to be adopted, you understand. But I’m too old. And soon you will be too. Couples like this, they want younger children, easier to manage. No, I think they’ll send us to join the army as soon as we’re old enough.”
Jan is finding it difficult to breathe. He thinks of the soldiers and police he saw in his village, what they did to the men. Is this what is in store for him? A brutal existence of following harsh orders. It’s unbearable. He won’t do it, and he knows what will happen then. Certain death.
“But I tell you what, Jan… I’m not going to wait around to find out.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s time to move on. You’re going aren’t you? After your sister?”
Of course he is. Since he realized Lena was gone, his only thought has been to find her. He knows it will be risky; even if he does find her they will be in an alien land, friendless, with no one to tell them how to get home, if they have a home to go to. Yet he has to do this. He can’t live like this, waiting for someone to come and take him to a strange home, destroying any chance of him ever seeing his family again. And the other option, he can’t bear to think of that. He looks at Pawel and nods.
Pawel punches the air in triumph. “I knew it! We will go together. It’ll be safer that way.”
Jan is overwhelmed by the relief that sweeps over him. Pawel is older and stronger, can speak German better, if he puts his mind to it. “When?” he says.
“As soon as possible. I don’t want to stay a moment longer than I have to, but not immediately, because I think we should take a little time to get ready.”
“You mean for food and things like that?”
“Exactly. We’ll need to save rations for our journey. And money – we’ll need to try to steal some.”
Jan pulls a face. It won’t be easy to get money for they are given none at all. There is money in the building, but it is well guarded. “Can’t we do without it?”
“No. Even if we save our rations for a week they won’t last that long when we’re travelling. We’ll need money to buy food, and perhaps to buy a train ticket, because who knows how far away your Lena is?”
This is true and, worse, although they know they’re in Germany, they don’t know what part. There’s a map in the room that’s used as a classroom. Somehow they will have to find our where they are, and where Freidorf is, so that they have some knowledge of what lies ahead of them. As they plan what to do, Jan feels a surge of happiness, the first he has felt during waking hours since that terrible day in June, smiles as Pawel outlines some wild plans for their escape.
“I’m so happy you’re coming,” he says to Pawel.
“Not as happy as I am. I can’t wait to get out of this place.”
“Ssh, there’s someone coming.” They stuff the papers behind a radiator which, judging by the dust there, no one has touched for many years, and run back to their beds. When the woman comes in to shout orders at them, all she sees are two boys resting on their beds.