Bibiana.

In Polish it means the ‘Lady of the Lake’, from the Arthurian legend. I like it and I’m sure it’s somehow connected to my destiny: I’m like King Arthur, the child warrior who would one day drink from the Holy Grail and attain immortality. I couldn’t wish for a better companion than the Lady of the Lake.

So much for my personal take on her; the reality is much less poetic.

Bibiana is an informer.

Frau Lotte didn’t use that term when she introduced me on the first day; she talked nonsense, full of innuendo and lies: ‘Konrad, darling, come over here! Put your hammer down, please. You’ll end up taking someone’s eye out with that thing…Say hello to Bibiana! She’s just joined our team and you two are going to play a new game together. You’ll pretend she’s your mother, you’ll go out with her, and make lots of new buddies…Just look at the costume I’ve brought for you. Pop it on now, and no grumbling. Oh, I know it’s dirty and full of holes, but that’s so you look just right! You’re getting dressed up like a real little Polish boy!’

Blah-blah-blah. What a load of rubbish. I knew exactly what the deal was.

Even though she speaks German well, Bibiana is Polish. She comes from the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The Sisters must have waited a few days before introducing her to me, so she could put on a bit of weight and look less like a walking corpse. She’s still really thin: her dress hangs off her like a sack; her arms are scarcely bigger than mine; and her chest is completely flat, as if her breasts had been sucked inside her body. Her head was shaved to get rid of lice and now she’s hiding her bald head under a scarf. But nature was kind to her: she’s tall, blonde, with eyes as blue as mine and—it’s a bit weird—she definitely looks like me. That was her salvation. They offered her a deal: she could leave the camp on condition that she came here, to Poznan, and pretended to be my mother, going from village to village, making friends with single women with blonde hair and blue eyes, and getting their addresses to pass on to the Brown Sisters.

Between betrayal and death, she chose betrayal. It’s understandable. Even if it is cowardly. I’d never betray. But, there you go, informers are useful. There are a lot of them working at the town hall with Herr Doktor Ebner and Herr Tesch.

The thing I picked up from Frau Lotte’s spiel was that my mission has now become dangerous: I, Konrad, the prototype-child-typical-of-the-pure-Aryan-race, the child-elect, soon to be five years old—so defenceless—I am now going to be spending my days with a prisoner. It’s a bit like the episode Josefa described to me countless times: the dissident-whore-who-had-sex-with-a-Jew, who kidnapped me when I was only a tiny baby, who tortured me, starved me, and almost killed me.

Of course, this time it’s different; precautions have been taken to guarantee my safety: a car driven by an SS soldier will follow us wherever we go, and Bibiana has been warned that at the slightest false move the soldier will shoot her in the head. But I guess the car will be following us at a distance, so as not to arouse suspicion, which will leave me at Bibiana’s mercy. What if, on a whim, she feels guilty and decides no longer to betray her compatriots? What if, just before dying, she directs her hate at me and strangles me? Or pushes me into a ravine? Or drops me down a well? It would only take a minute or two, if that. And then, it’s all over! Raus, kaput, Konrad! Died in the service of his country.

The prospect of danger doesn’t frighten me. On the contrary, it excites me, intensifies my boundless Draufgängertum. My superiors’ trust in me has gone up a notch. I’m no longer a spy, I’m an infiltrator!

So I’m happy to play the game and wear the stinking rags Lotte hands me. I slip off my navy blue Bermuda shorts, my brown shirt with the armband, my tie and my cap, and I swap them for a baggy sweater full of holes, a crumpled pair of pants that has to be held up by a piece of string around my waist. Not very attractive, but very amusing. And from now on, not much washing: a quick top and tail on my face and bum, that’s it. It doesn’t matter if I have filthy nails, yellow teeth and foul breath.

Off we go, Bibiana and I, out along the Polish country roads. But it’s quite awkward: the problem is that we’re wary of each other. Bibiana more than me. She’s scared to death and it’s as plain as the nose on your face: a tantrum from me means she heads straight back to camp.

‘Bibiana was horrible today! She was really mean to me! She said I was a dirty rotten son of a Kraut’s prostitute!’

Lotte won’t budge until we get home and that’s the sort of thing I could report to her.

Oh, yeah, I can make up whatever the hell I like! That Bibiana didn’t give me anything to eat, that she didn’t get someone’s address because the woman was a friend of hers. And whatever else…Lots of kids my age lie, right?

So Bibiana is on her best behaviour. She addresses me formally, lowers her eyes as soon as I look at her, always walks a short distance behind me, or else on the road, leaving me the footpath, as the Poles have to do if they see a German. When it’s lunchtime, she watches me eat and doesn’t dare touch the provisions in the basket Lotte provides; she eats my leftovers, a bit of chewed bread, mashed vegetables I’ve stuck my dirty hands in, stewed fruit I’ve spat out. In the end, it’s obvious we aren’t the real thing and, even after a few days, no one’s taken the bait.

We get back empty-handed. Not a single address.

Things are not going well at all. The Sisters have faces as long as a wet weekend. Things don’t look good for Bibiana or for me: she could get sent back to camp and I could be demoted. Back to colouring-in with Frau Lotte in the bombed-out house.

So, one morning, Bibiana decides to take action. She gets straight to the point. ‘Konrad,’ she says, uttering my name for the first time, ‘no one will believe I’m your mother if you don’t let me hold your hand.’

I’m grateful to her for speaking frankly, for articulating the problem we’re up against. I’ll ignore her disrespect in speaking to me so intimately, but really…hold hands? That’s a bit much, isn’t it? I’m not going to sully myself like that, am I? I stare at her with my big blue eyes that make such an impression on people, and this time she doesn’t look away like she usually does. (Which is normal, really, as I’ve noticed that my eyes only disconcert those with dark eyes, whereas Bibiana’s are extraordinarily bright. Not the slightest fleck of anything around the irises. They’d get top marks from Doctor Ebner.) She’s got a little smile at the corners of her mouth as she waits for my answer. I give a sidelong glance at the car, which is on the road some distance off, on the edge of the field we’re standing in. I wonder…I weigh up the pros and cons. It’s true: when I hung around the school gates with the Sisters, I saw how the children reached for their mother’s hand as soon as they got out of school. Her suggestion was worth considering.

Okay. All right.

It’s all part of the risk factor in my infiltration mission. I slide my hand into Bibiana’s and walk in step with her instead of jogging ahead. My heart hammers in my chest—I absolutely hate physical contact! I’m just not used to it. In the Home, no one ever bothered to hold my hand. Or else it was so long ago that I’ve forgotten…I’m expecting my skin to burn, or get itchy, or exhibit some other symptom of a contagious disease.

It seems not. It’s okay.

The feel of Bibiana’s hand is actually not too horrible. Less horrible than Frau Lotte’s: sometimes, if I’m slow to obey her, she grabs me by the arm with her claw-like hands. That’s when I feel her dry, wrinkled skin, as rough as cardboard, scratchy. No, Bibiana’s is rather soft.

We walk a while in silence, then she says, ‘Every once in a while, I should pick you up…All right?’ She bends down to me.

What?

I stop in my tracks. I take my hand away as swiftly as if a bee had stung me. Bibiana is really overstepping the mark now. Just thinking about her holding me fills me with panic. No one has ever held me. At least not for months, years. It must go back to when I was a newborn, so I have no memory at all of the feeling. I start to tremble, I’m hot all of a sudden. I was enjoying the sun—it’s summer and a heatwave in this damned Polish countryside—but now it’s beating on my dolichocephalic head, my ears are buzzing and I can’t breathe. If Bibiana picks me up by force, I’ll yell so loud, we’ll rouse the whole town we’re approaching. I’ll kick her until she lets go of me, then I’ll roll on the ground and bash my head until I bleed. And that’ll be the end of her! The Unterscharführer in the car following us will notice something is wrong and she’ll get that bullet in the head!

When she sees my reaction, Bibiana starts to panic, too. She takes three steps backwards. Her sunkissed cheeks turn pale, as if the blood had drained out of her face. ‘Don’t worry! Don’t worry!’ she stammers. ‘Everything will be fine. I’m not going to force you to…’

She doesn’t have time to finish her sentence because I also stumble backward, trip on a stone, and fall on my face.

‘Oh my God!’ she cries out, kneeling down next to me. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’

Our voices attract the attention, not of the Unterscharführer in the car, but of a Polish woman passing by. She hurries over to us and I can tell that she’s asking Bibiana what happened. Bibiana makes out that I collapsed from the heat. Nothing serious. Everything’s fine…Everything’s fine. The woman looks at me while I get up and wipe the little trickle of blood from my hands. She doesn’t have much to offer us, a bit of bread and some fresh water. That will calm me down, she says, and, as she has two children, a boy my age and a six-year-old girl, I could come and play with them to put a stop to my tears.

Off we go with her, and return that night with the address.

Pleased with this initial success, I decide to redouble my efforts.

The very next day, while Bibiana and I are walking hand in hand, I turn things over in my head. Do I give it a go? Is it worth it? It’s not too dangerous. There’s always the Unterscharführer who can shoot from behind, and I’m also perfectly capable of defending myself. I can be very violent when I want to be. Let’s see. If I don’t give it a try, I’ll never know. I’m ready to go, but…wait, three more steps and then I’m off.

One. Two. Two. Two and a half. Two and three quarters…Three.

I stop dead.

‘What’s the matter, Maciej?’ asks Bibiana.

Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you: yesterday, when we were with the Polish woman who gave us something to drink, we were talking—I didn’t understand everything she said—but when she asked me what my name was, I was incredibly on the ball. If I’d said Konrad, as Frau Lotte insisted—she’s such an idiot—it would have ruined everything; my cover would have been blown. My instincts told me to use a Polish name. I said, ‘My name is Maxètche!’ It just popped out spontaneously; I have no idea why. Well, of course I do know; I love the sound of ‘Max’.

The Polish woman started to giggle. ‘Maciej, that’s how you pronounce it! Not Max-è-tche! Say it after me,’ she said in a kind voice.

Mothers always go weak at the knees when children make pronunciation mistakes. And Bibiana looked surprised by my instinctive response—gobsmacked even.

So now Bibiana is asking me what’s wrong, why I’ve stopped dead, and she starts to go pale again, like yesterday. She’s scared I’m going to have another tantrum.

I hold my hands up to her.

‘You…You want me’—she doesn’t dare finish, she’s scared stiff—‘You want me to pick you up?’

Well, duh! You got it. Stop looking at me with those eyes like a dead fish. (Do fish even have blue eyes?)

She comes closer, gently, as if she was about to pick up an armful of freshly laid eggs. She leans over, puts her hands under my armpits and, upsy-daisy, she picks me up.

‘Oh, you look so fragile, but you’re heavy enough, my little chap!’ she exclaims happily, still with an edge of anxiety in her voice.

Anxiety that I might suddenly start yelling. Because I’m frowning, my face is all scrunched up, my lips pursed, and my fists clenched. The thing is, I don’t know myself whether I’m going to start yelling or not. I haven’t decided yet. In the meantime, I’m staying rigid. She relaxes a bit and puts her right arm under my bum and supports my back with her left arm. Then she starts walking again, as if, holding her armful of eggs, she is also stepping onto a carpet of eggs.

So…

It’s not that bad, for the moment anyway. At least my feet get a rest. The soles on my stinking clodhopper Polish boots are worn thin and I’ve got splinters in my feet…I relax a bit and lean my head closer to Bibiana’s. I’d been holding myself away from her and now I’ve got a crick in my neck. I can smell her sweat, but it’s not too pungent. At least she doesn’t have stinky breath like Frau Lotte, who splutters over me when she’s speaking—I always feel like I’m going to drop dead, her breath is so foul. I relax even more and let my cheek brush against Bibiana’s. I can tell she’s relaxing, too. She takes her left hand from behind my back, holds my right hand, and gives it a little squeeze. I know from yesterday that this is just fine. Out of the corner of my eye I notice she’s smiling. A sloppy smile: as her smile widens, her eyes fill with tears.

I recognise this smile: it’s the same one the mothers had when their hearts melted at the sight of my angelic little face.

That evening, we return with three addresses.

The more friendly Bibiana and I are, the more addresses we get.

The next day, she picks me up several times on our way to the village the Sisters had shown us on the map. I even have a tantrum at one point when she tries to put me down and I don’t want to walk.

Another Polish woman comes over to chat. ‘Aren’t they naughty at that age? It’s terrible.’

Excellent result: the address of a house with four children.

The day after next, Bibiana says, ‘Let’s see how fast you can run! Try and catch me!’

I catch up to her (because she cheated and let me win on purpose), trip her up, and she falls over, taking me with her. So both of us end up rolling in slimy mud, which is all over the place since the rain. When we get home that night, the Sister says, ‘Ach! You are disgusting! A real little Polack!’

What are you whingeing about, you old bag? You got your six addresses today, didn’t you?

Another day, Bibiana tickles me and I start giggling like mad. Then she sticks her lips on my cheek…Weird. Sort of disgusting. I don’t scream or cry, but I must look funny as I rub my cheek really hard, because she bursts out laughing. When she asks me to do the same to her, I refuse. Not for now, at least.

One day after lunch we fall asleep together in the sunshine. I’m the first to open my eyes and I shake Bibiana, but she doesn’t wake up. All of a sudden, I’m terrified. What’s happening inside my head? I can’t work it out. It’s like I’m remembering that story Josefa told me, about when I was a baby and I was found in the arms of the corpse, the dissident whore who kidnapped me. So I think Bibiana is dead. Perhaps all the women who come from the camps are the same, and all die fast? It’s as if Bibiana has the same face as the whore who tortured me. Oh dear, it’s all so muddled in my mind. Sometimes, certain vague, shifting images haunt me. My brain is too immature to be able to file memories away, and the compartments get mixed up. Before they’re banished forever, those memories invade my peace of mind.

Anyway, this day, a woman comes over to us when she sees me crying and shaking Bibiana. ‘What’s the matter, you poor little boy? Is your mummy hurt? No, look, she’s fine! She’s just asleep. It’s too much for our poor children, isn’t it? The trauma they’re suffering. It’s no wonder,’ she says to Bibiana, who finally stirs.

We spend the afternoon at the woman’s house, and she tells us about her friends in the neighbouring village. That evening our pockets are full of addresses.

We continue like this for weeks, until one day, out of the blue, Bibiana asks me, ‘Maciej, where is your mummy?’

I don’t reply; I’m eating. I can’t do two things at once, eat my sausage and talk. I mean, I can’t talk properly, can’t articulate it like I’m telling you; my five-year-old way of talking is not up to putting it into words. So I just mumble a few sounds typical of a child my age. ‘Me, no Mummy!’

Bibiana lowers her eyes and starts fiddling with a leaf—we’re sitting on the ground in a forest; she’d decided we could have a little rest after working hard all morning. Now the leaf is in shreds.

After a minute of silence, she says, ‘I understand. Your mummy is dead, isn’t she? In the bombing? After all, you people are getting a few bombs, too.’

That’s got nothing to do with it. Bibiana is on the wrong track completely. I don’t have a mother. That’s the word that I erased from my vocabulary. I don’t even know anymore what it means exactly, except for what I observe with the Polish children.

‘And your father?’

I keep chewing my sausage, but I can’t swallow. I’m sick of sausages! Frau Lotte always gives me the same thing to eat every day. Why doesn’t she put sweets in the basket, like there were in the big pocket of her uniform when we were on the road together? I grimace to show how disgusting the sausage is.

‘Your father’s dead, too, is that right? Poor little Maciej, are you an orphan?’

Huge tears trickle down Bibiana’s cheeks. It’s ridiculous she’s making herself sad like this, for nothing. She was talking to herself and answered her own questions.

Still, I don’t like seeing her so upset, and I’m not an idiot—I can spout a few sentences when I want to. ‘My mother is Germany, and my father is the Führer!’ And I raise my arm in a salute. Nice and straight, like a sword. Then I yell, ‘Heil Hitler!’

Bibiana recoils. There’s a strange glint in her eyes. For a split second, I think she’s going to smack me. Instead, she comes closer, grabs my arm, lowers it, pulls it towards her, and kisses my hand. I feel like doing the same thing to her, so I kiss her, too. On the cheek.

I thought we’d beat our record for addresses that day. In fact we didn’t. Well, we did get heaps of them. But what the hell has got into Bibiana?

When we get back, instead of giving the papers with the addresses to the Sister and saying goodnight to me before going to sleep in the cellar of the town hall, like she does every other night, Bibiana stands in front of the Sister and, with an arrogant look I’ve never seen on her, which transforms her normally pretty face into a hideous mask, she proceeds to eat all the pieces of paper. She stuffs them into her mouth one after the other, so fast that the Sister, aghast, has no time to react.

Why did she do that? Why?

If she was so hungry, why didn’t she tell me? I’d have given her my sausage. I forced myself to eat it and it’s sitting like a stone in my stomach.

I’ve got a tummy-ache.

I want to vomit.