The sky was a most gorgeous blue, like Mr Lasky’s tea set. It had been a wedding present. He always thought of his wife when he used it. Somewhere behind, near the gate, was the stump. They’d painted the cut face black to stop any shoots growing.
Chapter Seventeen
Roza’s eyes fell upon every window; she lingered, trembling, at every junction, staring down the long avenues at the lined up houses and apartment blocks. Her child was behind one of those doors. Another woman with short black hair was telling her husband about those first infant steps, the reeling on tiny feet, and the soft, surprised landing. Together they were mouthing words, ‘Mummy’, ‘Daddy’. The evocation of family contentment was worse than any torture Roza had endured in Mokotow She looked in different directions, trying to turn away but only saw other windows and other doors. Finally her agonised steps came to a block of flats built on the old Jewish Ghetto. On the third floor was the home of Aniela Kolba.
The door was opened by a little boy aged five or six. His hair was chestnut brown, his cheeks scrubbed. A white fist gripped the side of baggy charcoal trousers.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, cowering away.
This had to be Bernard. He’d once nearly choked on a fishbone.
‘I am…’
Roza couldn’t finish her introduction. She was overcome with emotion at the sight of the boy his blue veins visible through the soft skin of his neck. Aniela, busy and buxom, appeared behind him, her plump hands covered in flour. Dusting them wildly on her blue flowered apron, she pulled Roza inside.
‘I’ve been waiting,’ she murmured. ‘And now that you have come, you will stay’
She gripped Roza fiercely, recognising that she’d come alone: that the baby had left Mokotow through another door; that Roza had followed a hard route taken by other prison mothers. Aniela’s grip told Roza that she understood everything; that coping with the loss of your husband was bad enough without suffering a constant reminder of his murdered face; that Roza had done nothing wrong; that she’d made a difficult decision for the best. All this and much more was pressed into Roza, as if she needed some kind of absolution from another mother. Roza accepted it, neither willing nor able to explain how Brack had tricked her.
‘Your home is with us, now,’ said a man’s voice, full of the same understanding and compassion. ‘Aniela won’t let you go, so you might as well get used to it.’
Edward Kolba, weathered and stocky sleeves rolled up, shook his head at any possible objection. He was standing behind his wife, one hand resting on his son’s head.
‘When she’s made up her mind, he said, his arched thick eyebrows riding high with affection, ‘there’s no compromise. I’ve told her a million times: join the Party. The Russians would let go by the end of the week.’
‘Have you got the bed yet?’ asked Aniela, over her shoulder. ‘If I told you once I told you twice. Now-’
‘I’ll be back in half an hour,’ replied Edward, reaching for his coat and hat. ‘I’ll sort everything out.’
Edward sorted out a great deal — far more than the army camp bed that he set up on the other side of a wardrobe that functioned as a kind of partition in the sitting room, giving Roza her own private space. Within a week he’d found her a job at the Dubinski Millinery, a hat-making factory where his sister-in-law worked as a line manager. Roza, bewildered with gratitude, accepted her place in this new ordered world. Its structure gave her strength. It roused her dreams. She went on the night shift so that she could be free during the day Free to find the State department that dealt with adoptions.
The relevant offices were situated in a bleak concrete edifice at the end of an alley in a southern district of the city After being shunted from one room to another, describing to various administrators along the way the man with the ragged briefcase, she ended up in the antechamber of Mr P R. Bondel, the Temporary Fourth Assistant to the Second Deputy Director. The room was small, the walls naked of any decoration. Two wooden chairs faced a reception desk, behind which sat a woman with scraped back hair typing feverishly Over her shoulder, Roza saw a door of frosted glass. Looking at the shadowy figure on the other side, she explained to the secretary that she wanted to find her child. There’d been a terrible mistake. The papers had been filled in a short while back and surely- ‘Sorry.’ The woman hit a full stop and looked up, her pointed face frank and uncompromising. ‘Once the forms are signed it’s just not possible… didn’t anyone tell you?’
‘Yes,’ replied Roza, ‘but my situation is different. I didn’t sign. It’s complicated. It’s-’
‘Name?’ Simple, unfortunately the woman’s expression implied.
‘Mojeska, Roza.’
‘Take a seat.’
The woman barely opened the frosted door, and only managed to slip through the gap because she was so thin. After a few minutes, she eased herself back into the antechamber and said, with that same practised finality, ‘Sorry, there really are no exceptions. Mr Bondel is most sympathetic, but once the forms are completed, signed or not, there’s no-’
‘I want to see him.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s busy.’
‘I’ll wait.’
‘You’ll be here all day’
‘I’ll stay all week.’
Persuaded that Roza meant business, the woman quickly nipped inside once more. After some heated back and forth, the door swung wide open. Behind an enormous desk, like a man hiding from a Panzer, or maybe his wife, sat the spectacled official who’d come with his briefcase to Mokotow prison.
‘Do take a seat, Madam,’ he said, rising, one hand brushing the crumbs off his waistcoat. ‘How very nice to see you again. Can’t say I thought you’d see the light of day so soon, but there we are. Glad to know you’ve made your peace with the forces of law and order. Everyone should get a second chance, that’s what I say…
Roza saw the sweat on his top lip. He took out a wrinkled handkerchief and dabbed his mouth.
‘It’s not too late,’ said Roza, firmly taking a seat.
‘For what?’
‘Getting back my child.’
‘Ah… that’s exactly what my secretary said you’d said. I presumed she’d misunderstood your meaning. I’m afraid it’s quite out of the question, quite impossible… altogether — ’ he paused, looking for another word, something official or technical — ‘unfeasible. That’s what it is. Totally unfeasible.’
‘Why?’
With a heavy sigh, he shoved the handkerchief into his trouser pocket, settling his beetle brows into a kindly smile for the criminally obtuse. He was used to explaining things official. And not everyone appreciated the work of the Department. Unsung, it was.
‘Madam… sorry, what was the name?’
‘Mojeska, Roza.’
‘Quite right, Madam Mojeska, you have to understand how these things work. You see, there’s a great demand for an infant, you know, when they’re young. Free of attachment. Wouldn’t know their mother from a spring chicken. Makes life easier for everyone. The older they get, they don’t hook on that easily And that makes them hard to place. It takes time and folk don’t always want to wait. They want a simple life. Sad, but true. A child’s a child, that’s what I say but not everyone agrees with me. And you see Madam… Majewsky… the facts are your child would have been placed within days. Even before I got back to the office. The queue for infants reaches from here to Krakow That’s just an expression, mind you, we have a national remit, of course.’ but-’
‘The papers were only filled in seven months ago,’ objected Roza. ‘I was tricked and misled. You have to help me.’ I beg you. Tell me who has my child. If they knew what had happened, they’d understand, I’m sure of it… and they can stay at the front of the queue, there are other children out there. But we have to find my child. I’m free now… I’m here’
Mr Bondel nodded a painful recognition of the fact but then began to shake his head as if reverting to the thrust of his previous expostulations. He waited and waited, expecting Roza to rise and leave, but she only stared back, resolute, uncomprehending… obtuse, criminally incapable of falling into line. Mr Bondel thought for a moment and then a sort of light brightened his official regret. ‘Perhaps, this once, I can do something.’ Pondering, a finger flicked his lips. ‘What was the name?’