War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 142

Chapter 26

“S

o, you’re back like a bad penny?” Stan growled.

“Stan, shut up for a moment and see who Richard has brought back with him,” Katrina scolded her brother as she pointed at Jan.

Stan’s jaw fell open and he uttered in disbelief, “Is that you? Jan? Is that really you?”

“Uncle Stan?” Jan answered.

“It’s you. Thank God! You’re alive!” He took Jan in his arms, kissing him and hugging him so tightly that the boy struggled and ran off to hide behind Katrina.

Stan stood in the middle of the room, turning his cap in his hands, intently studying the toes of his shoes. When he finally raised his head to meet Richard’s eyes, his expression was full of shame. “I guess…maybe you’re not such a bad guy after all…”

Richard didn’t feel schadenfreude at how the other man struggled admitting his mistake. He probably would have reacted the same way, if one of his sisters – God forbid – had fallen in love with the enemy. He reached out his hand, saying, “Let’s put all this behind us.”

Stan took the outstretched hand in a firm handshake. “Please forgive me for making your life miserable. And thank you so much for risking your life to rescue Jan. I’ll be forever in your debt.”

“I love your sister dearly and it was the least I could do,” Richard replied.

Stan flinched at the mention of love, but he made his best effort to smile. “We’ll talk about this later. My sister is an honorable woman.”

They spent the rest of the evening catching up and making plans.

“I could get fake papers for Jan,” Stan said.

“Do you really think he’s safe here?” Katrina glanced over while preparing a feast for everyone.

“Why shouldn’t he?” Richard asked. Wasn’t the family farm the safest place for the boy to be?

“Someone might betray him.”

“Oh…”

Stan shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a problem. Jan was, how old, when they took him to the Ghetto? Eight?”

“Seven years and nine months,” Jan answered.

Richard thought the boy must be in a daze to finally be allowed to exist again. He couldn’t imagine how a person must feel during eighteen months in hiding, not allowed to be seen, heard, or otherwise noticed.

“It’s very improbable that someone would remember let alone recognize him after such a long time. He’s changed a lot…” Stan’s comment made sense.

“But what do we do with…Agnieska,” Katrina whispered with a fearful glance at the door. None of them had dared to mention her name, but everyone felt the prickling tension in the air. She could knock on the door any minute now – if she’d made it out of the camp.

“Stan, could you go upstairs with Jan and show him his room? He’ll sleep with you for the time being,” Katrina said.

Stan nodded, and uncle and nephew disappeared upstairs, caught up in cheerful chatting. Katrina had barely finished dinner and set the table with Richard’s help when the boy came bolting down the stairs and shouted, “My

ciocia

!”

Katrina rushed toward the front door to see a haggard woman walking up the road to the house. Richard laughed at how Jan weaseled his way past her and launched himself into the other woman’s arms.

“Aunt Agni, you’re here!” Jan shouted and led her into the house. “You’re here. I missed you so much!”

Richard smiled. The boy had been without his aunt for less than twenty-four hours, but it probably had seemed like a lifetime for him.

The Zdanek family kissed and hugged, until Agnieska turned toward Richard. “You must be the brave man the midwife told me about.” She took his hand into both of hers and kissed the back of it and said, near to tears, “I’ll remain indebted to you for as long as I live for saving Jan and me.”

Richard grinned to hide his embarrassment and removed his hand from her grasp. “It was nothing, really.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but when her eyes caught his, she seemed to understand and gave a nod. “In any case, thank you.”

“How did you get out?” Katrina asked.

“On foot.”

Richard could only admire the petite, dark-haired woman who looked like a walking scarecrow. Despite everything, she hadn’t lost her humor, and the iron will blazing inside that had enabled her to not only survive years of malnourishment, backbreaking work, crowded living quarters, and disastrous sanitary conditions, but also to hide, feed, and support her nephew throughout that time, ultimately assuring his survival.

Agnieska glanced at Richard as if to ask for his permission to divulge the information. He couldn’t see why not and nodded slightly. “Richard here and the midwife somehow got a camp employee uniform and ID card for me, and when the day shift ended, I simply walked out with everyone else. Then I returned everything to Magda and changed into the dress she gave me.”

“Dinner is ready,” Katrina said, interrupting the story.

“The trouble will begin when you don’t show up at the Ghetto tonight.” Stan carried an extra chair into the kitchen.

“No one will bother today. But yes, my absence will be noticed in the morning,” Agnieska replied.

All the adults looked at each other with awkward faces. Nobody wanted to think about the consequences.

“There’s no way they’ll connect her escape to us,” Katrina finally said.

“I’ll get fake papers for both of you, sooner rather than later,” Stan offered between big bites of a hearty stew with rabbit meat.

Jan chewed with full cheeks, his shiny eyes revealing that he felt like he was in paradise. Agnieska, though, seemed unable to relax. “We can’t stay here. They might come to ask you about my whereabouts and our presence will endanger you.”

She had a point there. Once her absence was detected, the police would probably come, interrogating her family.

“You’ll stay here until Stan has papers for you,” Katrina decided. “If someone visits our house, you hide in the storage room beneath the trap door.”

“We know how to hide, right, Jan?”

The boy nodded. “Aunt Agni has been hiding me for one and a half years. Can you imagine? I had to keep quiet all the time and couldn’t go outside ever.”

Richard’s heart broke for the boy. What unimaginable martyrdom for a lively boy Jan’s age. After dinner, Agnieska and Jan went upstairs to catch some much-needed sleep. Jan would share the room with Stan, while Agnieska would sleep with Katrina, and Richard had the room to himself. He longed to take Katrina into his arms and feel her soft body against his, showing her how much he’d missed her. He hadn’t known her body for so long, but with so many people, especially Stan, in the house, he would have to wait a little longer.

Stan left

before dawn to return to his partisan unit and get papers for Agnieska and Jan. The rest stayed at the farm, living with the threat of discovery breathing down their neck every single moment.

After three days, they relaxed. If the German police hadn’t visited by now, they probably wouldn’t come. But the fourth day brought an unexpected visitor. Katrina greeted a very agitated Mrs. Koszlow in the hallway.

“Can you imagine that vicious snake?” Mrs. Koszlow clamored and burst into the kitchen.

Richard barely managed to close the trap door, hiding the two Jewish refugees. He couldn’t disappear in time, but he needn’t have worried. The agitated woman didn’t notice him. “She poisoned me. I’m sure of that!”

“Who poisoned you, good woman?” Katrina asked and offered her a seat with the back to Richard.

“Magda Lenska.”

Katrina and Richard gasped a breath at the same time, before she motioned for him to sneak out of the kitchen. He waited until Katrina walked over to the sink, pouring water with lemon balm for Mrs. Koszlow. He timed his steps with hers and pressed his back against the wall outside, not daring to escape upstairs for fear he’d make a sound and alarm the woman.

“Here, drink this, it’ll refresh you,” Katrina said.

The other woman eyed the glass suspiciously. “Are you trying to poison me, too?”

“Me? Of course not.” Katrina laughed. “Here, let me drink half of it.” She poured half of the water into a second glass and drank it in one gulp.

But Mrs. Koszlow pursed her lips and took only a tiny sip. “As I said, the treacherous snake poisoned me and then she gave my uniform to that ghastly Jewess, who had nothing better to do than to escape with it.”

Katrina gasped. “How could that happen?”

“That’s why the Jews are our ruin, they have no honest bones in their bodies. They haven’t found her yet, but at least this godless midwife has received what’s rightfully hers,” she spat out, then gave an ugly laugh.

Even from his position in the hallway Richard sensed how Katrina froze at the nasty tone.

“What…what has happened to her?”

“The Gestapo arrested her as soon as I told them what she’d done to me. I imagine she won’t be alive for long. Serves her right.”

Richard fought the urge to bolt into the kitchen and strangle the vindictive woman. Apparently, Katrina pondered the same idea, because her next words came in a barely controlled voice. “Poor woman.”

“Poor woman?” Mrs. Koszlow’s voice cackled with rancor. “Do you have the slightest idea what I went through? Having to fear for my job! The Germans initially thought I’d planned the whole thing. Me? Haven’t I served them well for the past years? Never complaining about the pay or the long working hours. Don’t they think it was hard on me having to deal with all those filthy and disobedient children all the time?”

“Oh yes, you are truly a poor woman. Life has been so hard on you,” Katrina said, her voice dripping with false sweetness.

“Well, I try to bear my fate with my head held high. Thanks for the water,” the woman said and Richard heard her chair scratch across the wooden planks. He slid into the corner beneath the staircase, thinking it best to avoid her.

Once she’d left the house, Katrina locked the front door behind her and fell into Richard’s arms, shaking. Tears streamed down her face as the tension of the past days burst through the dam of her self-control.

“Shush, my darling, she’s gone. It’s over.” His soft words reassured her as he stroked her hair, but he knew it wasn’t over yet. It was only a matter of time until the Gestapo made the connection between Agnieska and the Zdaneks. The sooner she and Jan left the farm, the safer for everyone. He prayed Stan would return with fake papers before the Germans came looking for them.

Katrina’s sobs faded and he pressed a kiss on her forehead. “Come on, darling. We have to let Agnieska and Jan out of hiding.”

“Oh…I totally forgot about them.” Katrina slapped a hand across her heart. “Poor Jan. He must have heard every vicious word that woman said. He’s so young…”

“He’s young, but he’s resilient. And in time he’ll forget. That’s the benefit of youth,” Richard said and walked into the kitchen to open the trap door. For himself, he didn’t hope for the gift of forgetting. Combat had been an awful experience, but at least after each exhausting battle he’d fallen into a death-like sleep. A few weeks ago, though, the horrors he’d experienced had started haunting him at night. He dreaded falling asleep, because his fallen comrades would visit him in his nightmares, their mouths open in a silent cry, faces disfigured, limbs missing.

He blinked to remove the images and pulled the trapdoor open to release two pale and visibly shaken persons from their confinement.

Much later that evening, when Jan was put asleep upstairs, the three adults sat around the wooden kitchen table.

“Jan and I will leave the moment Stan returns with our papers,” Agnieska said, putting both of her bony hands around a mug of hot herb tea.

“You can’t – where will you go?” Katrina asked and Richard’s heart squeezed at the pained look in her eyes.

“I still have friends in Warsaw. Gentile friends. With our new papers we can go there and live with them.”

Richard knew it was for the best. The new separation would hurt, but with the midwife in the hands of the Gestapo they weren’t safe here anymore. Neither was he…nor Katrina. Hot and cold waves shot through his body at the mere thought of his beloved woman in the hands of those brutes. “Katrina and I should leave, too.”

Two heads shot around to look at him.

“If the Gestapo tortured Magda, she might have given them my name. Or yours. They may be brutes, but they aren’t stupid. They’ll make the connection between the midwife, Agnieska, Mrs. Koszlow, and you soon enough.”

“I can’t leave here, I have to run the farm. Someone has to feed the partisans,” Katrina said, pushing her lower lip out.

“Don’t you think you’d be of more use to the underground free and alive than in the hands of the Gestapo?” Agnieska put a hand over Katrina’s. “I know it’s hard to abandon everything you’ve worked so hard for, but sometimes it is for the best.”

“No. And this is my last word.” Katrina clonked her mug on the table.