The Winter Guest

Poland, 1940

The low rumbling did not rouse Helena from her sleep. She had been dreaming of makowiec, the poppy seed rolls Mama used to make, thick and warm with a dusting of sugar. So when the noise grew louder, intruding on her dream and causing her hands to tremble, she clung tighter to the bread, drawing it hurriedly to her mouth. But before she could take a bite, a crash rattled the house and a dish in the kitchen fell and shattered.

She sat bolt upright, trying to see through the darkness. “Ruth!” Helena shook her sister. Ruth, who was curled up in a warm ball with her arms wrapped around the three slumbering children between them, had always slept more soundly. “Bombs!” Immediately awake, Ruth leaped up and grabbed one of their younger sisters under each arm. Helena followed, tugging a groggy Michal by the hand, and they raced toward the cellar as they had rehearsed dozens of times, not bothering to stop for the shoes lined up at the foot of the bed.

Helena scrambled down the ladder first, followed by Michal. Then Ruth passed five-year-old Dorie below before climbing down herself, the baby wrapped around her neck. Helena dropped to the ground and pulled Dorie onto her lap, smelling the sour milk on the child’s breath. She cringed as the inevitable wetness of the muddy earth seeped through her nightclothes, then braced herself for the next explosion. She recalled the horrors she’d heard of the Warsaw bombings and hoped that the cottage could withstand it.

“Is it a storm?” Dorie asked, her voice hushed with apprehension.

“Nie, kochana.” The child’s body relaxed palpably in Helena’s arms. Dorie could not imagine something worse than a storm. If only it were that simple.

Beside her, Ruth trembled. “Jeste´s pewna?” Are you certain there were bombs?

Helena nodded, then realized Ruth could not see her. “Tak.” Ruth would not second-guess her. The sisters trusted each other implicitly and Ruth deferred to her where their safety was concerned. Michal leaned his tangle of curls against her shoulder and she hugged him tightly, feeling his ribs protrude beneath his skin. Twelve years old, he seemed to grow taller every day and their meager rations simply couldn’t keep up.

Ten minutes passed, then twenty, without further noise. “I guess it’s over,” Helena said, feeling foolish.

“Not bombs, then.”

Helena could sense her sister’s lips curling in the darkness. “No.” She waited for Ruth’s rebuke for having dragged them needlessly from bed. When it did not come, Helena stood and helped Dorie up the ladder. Together they all climbed back into the bed that had once belonged to their parents.

Helena thought of the noises early the next morning as she made her way up the tree-covered hill that rose before their house. The early-December air was crisp, the sky heavy with foreboding of the harsher weather that would soon come. It had not been her imagination—she was sure of that. She had heard the drone of the airplane flying too low and the sound that followed had been an explosion. But she could see for miles from this vantage point, and when she peered back over her shoulder, the tiny town and rolling countryside were untouched, the faded rooftops and brown late-autumn brush she had known all her life showing no signs of damage.

She was halfway up the hill when a rooster crowed. Helena smiled smugly, as though she had outplayed the animal at its own game. Pausing, she turned and scanned the horizon again, gazing out at the rolling Małopolska hills. Beyond them to the south sat the High Tatras, their snowcapped peaks obscured by mist. She gazed up at the half crescent moon that lingered against the pale early-morning sky. The wind blew then and the moon seemed to duck behind some silvery gray clouds, casting light around the edges.

Helena bent to untangle the frayed hem of her skirt from the tops of her boots with annoyance. Her eyes dropped once more. Biekowice was just one of a dozen or so villages surrounding the larger town of My´slenice, spokes on a wheel fanning across the countryside. The entire region had been part of the Austrian empire not thirty years earlier and the latticed, red roof houses still gave it a slightly Germanic feel. There was one road into town, feeding into a cluster of streets, which wound claustrophobically around the market square like a noose. Another road led out just as quickly. A patchwork of farms dotted the outskirts, gray smoke wafting from their chimneys to form a halo above.

Shifting the small satchel she carried, Helena continued along the western path, a pebble-strewn route that climbed upward toward the main road. In the stream that ran alongside the path, water gurgled. Her footsteps fell into an easy rhythm. Despite her mother’s admonitions, Helena had escaped to the woods frequently as a child. In the confines of their small cottage, she bounced about restlessly like a rubber ball, with nowhere for her energy to go. But this was the one place she could be by herself and truly feel free.

Pine needles crackled beneath her feet, breaking the stillness, their scent mixing with more than a hint of smoke. What brush or refuse could the farmers be burning now? Everything, even items once discarded, might have some use. Leaves and twigs could, if not fuel a fire, at least make it burn longer, stretch the logs or make them hotter when the wood in the pile was damp. She scoured the ground now as she walked, looking for dropped berries or nuts or even acorns that might be used for tea. But the earth here was picked bare by the animals, as ravenous and desperate as she.

The war had broken out more than fifteen months earlier, and for a while, despite the warnings that crackled nonstop across the radio, first in Polish and later in German, it seemed as though it might not have happened at all. Though their small village was less than twenty kilometers from Kraków, little had changed other than the occasional passing of military trucks on the high road outside town. It was the blessing, Helena reflected, of living in a place so sleepy as to be of no strategic value. But the hardships had come, if not the Germans themselves: herds of cattle and other livestock disappeared in the night, reportedly over the western border. Coal stores were requisitioned and sent to the front to help the war effort. And an unusually cruel summer drought had contributed to the misery, leaving little to be canned for winter storage.

She reached the paved road that led toward the city. It was deserted now, but exhaust hung freshly in the air, suggesting a car or wagon had passed recently. Helena’s skin prickled. She could not afford to encounter anyone now. She looked longingly back toward the trees, but taking the steep, winding forest path would only slow her down.

As she started forward, Helena’s thoughts turned to the previous evening. “Don’t go,” Ruth had begged as they readied the children for bed. They’d worked seamlessly in tandem as they’d completed the familiar grooming chores, like two appendages of the same body. “It’s dangerous.” She accidentally pulled Dorie’s braid too hard, causing her to squeal.

Ruth’s objection was familiar. She had fought Helena since she’d first proposed going to the city, continuing Tata’s weekly pilgrimage after his death. It was not so much that the half-day trek was physically demanding; Helena had navigated the steep, rocky countryside with her father all her life. But the Nazis had forbidden Poles from traveling beyond the borders of their own provinces without work passes. If they noticed Helena and asked questions, she could be arrested.

“What other choice do we have?” Helena had asked practically, pulling the nightdress over Karolina’s hair, savoring her freshly washed smell. They did baths twice a week, Karolina first, then the older children and Ruth and finally Helena, scrubbing as well as she could in the cool, filmy water after the rest had gone to bed. “We have to make sure Mama eats.” And is not mistreated, she added silently. The care at the sanatorium was minimal, the resources scarce. She hadn’t told Ruth of the times she’d turned up to find their mother missing her socks or lying in her own excrement, risking infection of the bedsores she persistently developed from not being turned.

Ruth had not answered, but continued unbraiding Dorie’s hair, lips pursed in conflict. Helena knew that Ruth found the notion of Mama shut away in some city hospital alone unbearable, and that Helena checking on her each week gave her some comfort. Ruth feared the outside world, though. She had responded to everything that had happened by closing off and drawing within.

Helena, on the other hand, wanted to see the world. Her mind reeled back to an earlier trip to the city. It was a fine fall day, some leaves still orange on the trees, others giving a satisfying crunch beneath her feet. She had passed the turnoff for the city and it was a good two kilometers down the road before she realized she was on the path that would lead away from Biekowice for good. Ruth’s face had flashed in her mind then and Helena had stopped, guilt-stricken. She had been distracted, she told herself, and accidentally missed the turn. But she knew it was something more—for a moment she was actually leaving, without looking back. She had not taken that path again, but each trip she stopped and looked longingly down the road, wondering how far she could actually go.

Helena was jolted from her thoughts by a loud noise, a giant’s foot crunching down on a house. Ahead, a German jeep, machine gun mounted on the front, blocked the roadway. Helena leaped back into the roadside brush, catching her hand on something jagged. She stifled a cry as a thorn cut through her worn glove and into her skin.

As blood seeped through the wool, Helena berated herself silently for her carelessness in not clinging to the cover of the trees that lined the road. She crouched low to the ground, not daring to breathe. But it was too late: the gun mounted atop the jeep turned toward her with a creak. A soldier stood behind it, his gaze seeming to focus just above her. He shielded his eyes, searching the forest. This was the closest Helena had come to the war and, despite her terror, she found herself studying the man. He was ruddy faced and ordinary; save for the uniform and gun, he might have been one of the loggers down at the mill.

The soldier’s eyes narrowed, a mountain wolf hunting its prey. A hand seemed to grip Helena’s throat, squeezing. Would he arrest her or shoot her here? She was suddenly desperate to be in the house that an hour ago she had so eagerly escaped. Her heart pounded as she imagined her death. Ruth would be sad, or maybe cross. “I told you so,” her twin might say if she were here now, a smug smile playing about her full lips. Ruth liked to be right more than just about anything and Helena seemed to always give her reason by spilling or breaking something. Helena pictured Michal, wise beyond his years, comforting his sisters. But the little ones were closer to Ruth, depended on her for their care. And they had been so battered by the loss of their parents that they might weather this additional blow without much grief.

Helena felt against her side the cool metal of the knife she’d taken from Tata’s hunting kit and tucked in the waist of her skirt. She carried it in case she encountered a wolf, but now an image seized her of drawing it and slashing the German’s throat.

A minute passed, then another. Finally, the man sat down and started the ignition. As the jeep started in the other direction, Helena slumped against a tree, trying to catch her breath.

When the sound of the engine had faded, Helena stepped out from the bushes and scanned the now-deserted road. She didn’t dare continue this way now. Perhaps Ruth had been right about the danger of the trip and she should return home. But she imagined Mama alone in the hospital and knew that she had no choice. She doubled back to the path where it emerged from the woods. Steeling herself, Helena stepped into the forest and the welcome shelter of the trees that loomed overhead as she started toward the steep pass over the hills.

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At the sound of the door clicking shut, Ruth snapped her eyes open and tightened her arms around the children. She strained without success to see in the darkness, instantly struck by the sense of emptiness beside her. The bed was a bit cooler and the mattress did not sink as heavily as usual. Helena was gone. She had left for the city, this time without nudging Ruth as she usually did. And she had gone earlier, though perhaps that was not so strange, given the shortening days and the need to get back more quickly before nightfall.

Ruth shifted with effort, weighing the void she always felt in Helena’s absence. Michal’s head was on her shoulder, Dorie holding to her ankle and Karolina flung across her chest. The children seemed to gravitate toward her instinctively, even while sleeping. They were curled around her like puppies now, sweaty fingers clinging to her arm, cold toes pressing against her side. They had slept like this since their parents had gone, not only for warmth and to comfort the little ones, but also to keep everyone near in case of bombs like the ones Helena thought she had heard the previous night, or God only knew what else. Usually she found comfort in their closeness. But now they seemed cloying and heavy, making each breath an effort.

Disentangling herself carefully, Ruth donned her housecoat and slippers. She made her way to the kitchen, savoring the easy movements of her now-free limbs. She pulled back the shutters to watch as her sister climbed the hill. Her stomach fluttered anxiously. She had never quite gotten used to Helena’s absences. They had always been together, and in some hazy memory she could remember looking up from her mother’s breast to see the roundness of her sister’s head, eyes locking as they fed. Being without her was an appendage missing.

“Don’t go,” she wanted to shout as Helena grew smaller. They had sworn to Mama that they would keep the family together, and each time Helena ventured out to Kraków, risking arrest or worse, they were putting that promise in jeopardy. Her mind cascaded, as it always did, to the worst-case scenario: without Helena, Ruth would not be able to sustain the family and the children would have to be placed in an orphanage, where they would surely remain because no one was taking on extra mouths to feed these days.

As Helena disappeared, seemingly swallowed by the thick pine trees, Ruth was struck by an unexpected touch of envy. What was it like to just walk away, escape the house and the children and their needs for a few hours? Generally Ruth liked the comfort of their home with all of its memories and had no interest in venturing beyond the front gate. But now she imagined striding through the brisk morning air, arms free and footsteps light. Did Helena ever want to keep going and not come back?

Pushing away her uneasiness, Ruth walked to the kitchen and began preparing the ersatz coffee, knowing even as she did that the bitter mixture of ground acorns and grain would do little to stave off her exhaustion. She slept so poorly these days, waking at every creak. Helena had always been the one with the vivid dreams, while her own sleep was deep and uninterrupted. Now her nights were shattered with dark images of holding on to a tree, trying not to get blown away by a storm with winds so fierce they lifted her from her feet, seeming to pull her by the ankles and threatening to tear her in two.

She dreamed of the odd things, too—not food dreams like the ones Helena and the children often discussed, describing in mouthwatering detail the cakes and breads as if doing so might cause them to actually appear. Instead, Ruth dreamed of stockings, the smooth silk kind, well-woven without any holes or pulls. Nylons, she’d heard them called on the radio. They talked of German soldiers giving them to the girls. She sniffed. Piotr had not given her any gifts, even when she’d knitted him the scarf. He had talked about making her something for her birthday or Christmas, but their courtship hadn’t lasted that long.

Setting the coffeepot with the rusted handle on the stove, she looked around the house, their one saving grace. Built by their grandfather over the course of a decade, it was made of stone, and sturdy enough to keep out the harshest of weather. There was a large living room with a wide-beam oak floor and fireplace, and the lone bedroom off the back. Beside a faded picture of the Virgin Mary, a ladder climbed to the loft where the children had slept when their family had still been whole. Ruth saw an image like a long-forgotten dream of Tata playing with Helena on the floor, roaring with laughter as she and Mama looked on. They had been too happy to know how poor they were. Ruth had joined in, too, sometimes when the play was not as rough. Other times, she had watched from the side, wishing she could be a part of the game but too timid to play.

Seeing the house clearly now, Ruth began mentally inventorying the cleaning and decorating that needed to be done for Christmas. Once she had looked forward to the holiday so eagerly. Now it felt an effort, the idea of celebrating without their parents inconceivable. But they had to keep to their traditions as much as possible for the little ones’ sake.

There were other things that had to be done before deep winter set in, too: Helena would have to reseal the windows and repair the chimney crack their father had neglected to fix. Tata had promised grander things, too, like plumbing pipes for an indoor toilet. He had always tried so very hard to please Mama, but the basic chores to keep the house running and the odd jobs he took when he could get them seemed to fill every waking hour. Mama did not complain when such extra things did not materialize.

Once Ruth had imagined a home of her own—nothing terribly grand, just a bit bigger than this, with a flower garden. But that vision had walked off over the hill with Piotr, and remembering it now, she felt frivolous. Daydreams were not a luxury she could afford anymore, and wanting too much, well, maybe that was what had caused all the trouble in the first place.

Ruth uncovered the plate of peas that she’d left by the sink the previous evening and began shelling them for the soup she would make for lunch. A year earlier, the broth would have been thick with sour cream and pieces of lard. Now it would be mostly water. There was a bit of beetroot, too; she could shred and mix it with some vinegar and call it salad.

She pulled out the radio that sat hidden beneath the sink, adjusting the volume so as not to wake the children. Radios had been forbidden by the Germans, and keeping it was her one act of defiance, a link with the outside world. Only heavy static came through. Whether the radio was dying or the Germans had jammed the signal, she did not know. She made a note to ask if Helena could fix it. An unintelligible voice crackled then, growing clearer in time for her to hear the announcer warn in a low gravelly voice that Jews were no longer to ride the trolley cars.

Reaching for the coffeepot, Ruth stifled a laugh. There was no trolley in Biekowice, and no Jews, either. She had seen Jews only once in her life on a trip with her parents to the market in My´slenice. “Dorfjuden,” she’d heard them called on the radio recently. Village Jews. Their cluster of dismal, tar-roofed shacks made her family’s own cottage seem luxurious by comparison.

“I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of them, really, with all of the trouble,” Helena had remarked a few weeks earlier over breakfast, in that vague manner of speech they tended to use around the children.

“Better that they stay where they are,” Ruth had replied, her own voice sounding harsh. She did not mean it unkindly, nor did she harbor any special animosity toward the Jews. But while the Germans seldom seemed to trifle with Poles, they had enacted an endless series of laws aimed at the Jews, forbidding them from doing ordinary things and making their already-miserable lives harder. Ruth just didn’t want, as Mama would have said, to borrow trouble by having them around.

But Helena had a point, Ruth reflected now. Why didn’t the Jews scatter and flee the Germans? Though they probably thought there was strength in numbers, staying in their small compact centers just made them an easier target.

There was no mention of the bombing on the radio that Helena had thought she had heard the previous evening. Ruth smiled with satisfaction, glad that her sister, who always accused her of having an overactive imagination, had this time been wrong.

She finished shelling the peas and transferred them to a smaller bowl. From the bedroom came the sound of Michal’s snoring, the girls breathing gently beside him. She sighed. No one saw the work she did, the little things that kept them going. Helena deemed the chores she did outside and in the barn so much harder, scoffing at what she called “woman’s work.” Perhaps that was because Mama had made it look so easy, doing things twice as well and without complaint. To Ruth, though, it sometimes felt like too much.

Ruth washed the plate and dried it carefully, setting it back in its place in the cupboard. She tried to keep everything exactly as Mama had, as though she might walk through the door at any moment and inspect everything with a sweeping eye and issue Ruth a grade. Not like Helena, who blew through a room like a storm, sending things scattering. Borrowed was how the house seemed to Ruth, though she had grown up here herself. Like a sweater she kept carefully because she would one day be expected to return it. To acknowledge anything more would mean that Mama might not come back, and the thought was more than she could bear.