'No, no, you didn't,' she soothed him. 'Now, listen hard. You and mama are going away from here. You must keep very quiet so that nobody notices anything. There's nothing to be frightened of. Mama is with you.'
'Didn't dirty my pants. Not frightened either,' Karl announced.
She slipped into her boots and loden coat, and tied a scarf round her head. She put a small torch in her pocket. Her few things were packed in her case, around which she had put a leather strap. She slung it over her shoulder and took Karl's hand. They went quietly down the stairs. Helga opened the front door of the building — and immediately flinched back. Grabbe stood before them, a bottle of schnapps in his hand. His alcohol-laden breath wafted towards them.
Helga forced a smile. 'Happy Christmas, Herr Grabbe,' she said cheerfully.
'Happy Christmas,' Karl echoed her.
'Same to you,' replied Grabbe thickly, patting Karl's head.
It was snowing. The wind drove large, wet flakes into their faces. Helga avoided the forecourt, which was brightly lit. They took the path to the coach house and then went on through the bushes to the barred gate in the wall. The lock was well oiled, as Papa Zastrow had promised.
'Mama, I'm cold,' Karl said in a loud voice.
Alarmed, she put her hand over his mouth. She pointed her torch in the direction of the water, switched it on, and waited for a response, her heart thudding. A thousand thoughts went through her mind. Suppose Zastrow's son didn't come? They couldn't go back to the hospital. They would have to flee into the unknown. If it went wrong, she would put her scarf around Karl's neck as if she were applying a tourniquet. It wouldn't take more than twenty seconds. And then she would follow him.
A match flared up, illuminating a face. Through the driving snow, she saw the indistinct shape of a rowing boat in the reeds. She took her son on her back. He was heavy, his weight pushed her down into the icy mud until it came over her knees. It was a torment to haul her feet, step by step, from the suction of its embrace. Then strong arms heaved her into the boat. 'Get under the tarpaulin,' her rescuer told her.
How long the boat journey lasted she didn't know. It seemed as if she lay freezing under the tarpaulin for an eternity, her son, shivering with cold, in her arms. She heard the monotonous splash of the oars dipping in and out of the water. When the boat turned right she peered out. The driving snow had stopped falling, and the night was clear enough for her to see a few metres ahead. Her ferryman was punting the boat with one oar, towards a place in what looked like an impenetrable wall of reeds. They parted. Willows bent low, their branches lashing the tarpaulin. Driftwood scraped the outside of the boat with a dull sound as they glided into a narrow arm of the waterway. The branches of alders reared aloft like ghosts.
It was another quarter of an hour before the boat came up against a landing stage. Their rescuer made it fast and helped them out. They climbed a slope, a house towering black above them. Everything around it was wet and cold, and Karl clung to his mother for protection. My God, where have we ended up? Helga thought desperately.
The door of the house was opened. Golden light streamed out to meet them. Inside, the place was warm and comfortable. There was a scent of baked apples and cinnamon in the air, and a Christmas tree with burning candles lit the parlour. Five people, four women and a man, surrounded the new arrivals. The women wore festive costumes, elaborately winged caps and finely embroidered shawls. The man was wearing a blue and white patterned smock. He had dark hair streaked with grey, and a ruddy complexion. He stepped forward and said solemnly, Witamy was wutsobnje w Blotojskem.'
Helga was at a loss, but her host repeated it in German. 'You are very welcome to the Spreewald. My name is Fryco Hejdus. This is my wife Wanda, these are my daughters Marja, Slawa and Breda, and you know Zastrow's son Mato already.'
Her ferryman turned out to be a handsome man of twenty with nutbrown hair, who was watching her admiringly. She gave him her hand. 'Thank you, Mato. Thank you all. Karl, say thank you.' Karl obediently shook hands with everyone. The girls giggled and kissed him on the forehead. They were somewhere between fourteen and eighteen years old. Helga was surprised to see how naturally they accepted the boy, although they had probably never seen a mongol child before.
In the bedroom next to the parlour, Hejdus's wife Wanda gave them dry clothes to put on. Then they found a large, steaming bowl of punch waiting in front of the Christmas tree to warm them up. The master of the house filled wooden mugs with a wooden ladle. It was all done in as friendly and natural a manner as if they were old acquaintances.
Helga was anxious. 'Suppose they come looking for us?'
Hejdus dismissed the idea. 'They won't, not on Christmas Eve. And certainly not in this filthy weather. We can talk in peace tomorrow.'
There was baked carp with boiled potatoes and green Spreewald sauce, and pickled cucumbers with dill on the side. Karl ate tidily and with obvious pleasure. The girls mothered him. Helga couldn't remember when she'd felt as relaxed and as much at home, as she did here, at the table of these strangers. They spoke fluent German but occasionally lapsed into their native Sorbian. The fact that young Mato had eyes only for her both amused and flattered her.
Wanda Hejdus had made up the bed in the room next door for them. Mother and son fell asleep holding each other close.
A bright, sunny Christmas Day emerged from the mist. The Hejdus family had already gathered around the breakfast table when Helga and Karl appeared. There was gugelhupf, yeast cake baked in a ring mould, and cocoa with milk for the young people, and real coffee for the adults. Wanda Hejdus had bartered several dozen eggs for the coffee in Lubnjow.
'To think we have to do such things.' said Hejdus. 'This damn war.'
'Nonsense,' said his wife. 'Our grandparents and great-grandparents bartered goods whether it was war or peacetime. Money's always been in short supply in the Spreewald.'
After breakfast they went out. The house that had looked so forbidding the night before lay bathed in sunlight. A little way behind it stood a reedthatched cottage. 'That's where Zastrow and his son live,' Hejdus explained. 'We farm the Kaupe together. The Kaupe? That's what we call the sandy island enriched by the waters of the Spree that our ancestors settled and reclaimed for cultivation three hundred years ago,' he told his guest with pride. 'We grow cucumbers, onions, horseradish and buckwheat, and of course potatoes. Our catches of fish make a great contribution to the final victory, that's what the local Party leader says, and he has the fattest carp parcelled up for himself.'
'Repaying us by turning a blind eye if we forget to fly the Party flag on the Fiihrer's birthday yet again,' added his wife.
Mato waved up at them, smiling. He was sitting in the rowing boat, fishing. Karl ran down to him, and Mato helped him into the boat.
'He ought to be on the Eastern Front,' Hejdus muttered. 'But he won't fight for a regime that ranks us as second-class citizens. We Sorbs are Slavs and don't belong to the Germanic master race.'
'Suppose someone sees him? A healthy young man, not in uniform…?'
'Then he'll end up like young Lenik. Lenik was a rebellious lad even at school. He tore up his call-up papers in front of Liibben Town Hall, said he had better things to do than go to war for those madmen. The SA fetched him from his bed at night. We found him in the morning. He was in a cucumber barrel, head down in the brine.'