The Winter Guest (11 page)

A figure appeared suddenly on the path in front of them. Helena jumped. A man in a constable’s uniform stood blocking their way.
“Dobry wieczór, pani.”
He directed his greeting to Helena, bidding her good evening as casually as though they had met crossing the market square. But his eyes watched Sam closely, a predator tracking its prey. Who was he? He did not look familiar but his tone suggested they had met before. She wondered where he had come from, and whether he had seen them at the crash site. Her heart raced.

“What are you doing here?” the constable demanded. Helena searched for a plausible explanation.

“Dobry wieczór, Pan
Constable.”
Helena turned in surprise as Sam spoke. His Polish was smoother and more flawless than it had been in any of their previous conversations, the accent undistinguishable from her own. “I’m Mirosław Sendecki, a cousin of the Nowaks and I’ve come from Rzeszów to pay respects for the loss of their mother, my aunt.” His intelligence training must have prepared him for scenarios just like this, she realized. “We’re going to the cemetery to pay a visit to my uncle, as well, and we’re hoping to make it before dark. If you’ll excuse us...”

“Papers?” the constable asked. Helena reached into her coat pocket and pulled hers out, but the man waved her away and gestured to Sam.

“My cousin’s papers are at my house,” she blurted out, then instantly regretted making her own family a target.

The policeman stared at her and Sam for several seconds, weighing her story. Failure to present one’s papers was a crime in itself. They might both be arrested. “I’ll call by the house to check them later,” the policeman finally said sharply. He stepped aside, but continued to stare after her as they walked past and continued along the path.

When they had rounded the bend and the policeman had disappeared from site, Helena stopped, trying to figure out what to do. “What will you do when he comes looking for my papers?” Sam asked in a low voice.

“I’ll think of something.”

“You never should have come with me,” he said regretfully.

“You never should have left the chapel!” She looked around—she could not take Sam back up to the chapel while the policeman was still on patrol. Sam had told the policeman they were heading to the cemetery, but that was in the middle of the village and they could not actually go there, either, without attracting attention. Her earlier idea, of taking him to the cottage, popped into her mind once more. “Come.”

Sam was limping more now as he followed her, worn out from the trek to the plane. Helena hoped he would have the strength to make it back up to the chapel when it was time. As they reached the gate to her house, she looked longingly toward the cottage, wishing she could simply bring him inside. But who knew what impetuous Ruth might do when confronted with Helena’s secret? Instead, she hurried him into the barn and pulled up a door cut into the floorboards that led to a shallow cellar. She gestured for him to climb down into the empty space and he did so, crouching beneath the low ceiling. “Wait here.”

She raced into to the house, where the fire blazed merrily now, giving the room a too-warm feel. Ruth had nearly finished the laundry and she and Dorie were wringing out the last of it. Helena waited for Ruth to rebuke her for being gone for nearly two hours and not helping with the wash. Ruth did not look up, but raised her finger to her lips and then pointed toward the bedroom, indicating that Karolina was napping.

“I’m going back out to finish some work,” Helena said in a low voice.

“Again?” Ruth asked mildly, not looking up.

“Can I come?” Michal asked.

“No!” she said too harshly, instantly regretting it as his face fell. “I think I saw a squirrel in one of the old traps and I’m going after it,” she lied, knowing Michal would not volunteer to help.

“Well, at least take a potato to warm yourself if you aren’t going to be here for lunch,” Ruth said. Helena went to the stove and gingerly selected a potato, which was almost too-hot to touch, wishing she might have two. She grabbed some extra bread from the cupboard, hoping Ruth would not notice, and slipped from the house once more.

In the cellar, Sam was rubbing his wounded leg. “Serves you right,” she said, handing him the food without keeping any for herself. “What were you thinking, going like that?”

“I told you, I had to try to find the documents. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“I understand. But no more secrets, okay?” He nodded, taking her in with a long look. She had rushed after him into the forest without the care she usually took before visiting the chapel, and was suddenly mindful of her disheveled hair and soiled work dress. He did not seem to notice, but touched her shoulder, warming her. “The fact that the documents are gone, does that make things worse for you?”

Conflicting expressions crossed his face, unable to protect her from the truth without lying. “Perhaps. If they access the code, they’ll be able to figure out who we are, and what we were planning to do. And sooner or later they’re doing to realize that there were more of us than they’ve accounted for.”

She shivered. “You have to get out of here.”

He nodded in agreement. “My leg is just about strong enough.”

“So I’ve given it some thought,” she began, then she paused, licking her lips. Helping him go was the only choice she had, but doing so could not be harder. “The mountains to the south are heavily fortified but if we could get you on a train north, a freighter perhaps to Gda´nsk, it might be possible to escape by sea.”

His brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“You said you wanted to leave.”

“I do, but not to escape. I need to get to the partisans.”

She stared at him, mouth agape, stunned by the audacity of his plan. To make it out of Poland, an enemy soldier getting across the border, was one thing. But to stay and keep fighting... “That’s madness!” she blurted out. His face seemed to crumple a bit, as if her confidence in him was something he sorely needed.

“If the Germans crack those documents, it is going to reveal key information about the partisans—who won’t know they’ve been exposed. I have to get to them. I never should have said anything,” he added grimly, before she could protest. “The less you know, the better.”

She persisted, ignoring his last remark. “I mean, first of all you’re wounded.”

“I’m nearly healed,” he insisted stubbornly.

“But how? Where will you go?”

“Southeast.” He hesitated, then lowered his voice as if someone else might hear. “We were supposed to drop into a clearing on the Czechoslovakian side of the border.” It was the most he had said about his mission. “The objective was to make contact with the partisans in the woods there.”

He continued. “We want to help them organize. The resistance is very fragmented. There are different factions, each with their own interests. There’s dissent among their leaders—whether to attack now before things get worse or wait until they’ve amassed more weapons....” He stopped suddenly, and she wondered if he was worried about trusting her again. “I don’t want to bore you.”

“Not at all.” She was fascinated by this world, which until now she had not realized existed. People doing something real, something that mattered. Suddenly, she felt hope.

“Plus, if I can find them, perhaps they know what happened to the rest of my team. I know it’s unlikely any of them survived,” he conceded, seeing the conflicted look on her face. “But there were other units operating with us. If any of them made it to the partisans...”

“And if they didn’t?”

“Then it is so much more important that I do. I can help provide lines of communication, and the intelligence that they sorely need. Reinforcing the partisans is critical to holding the Eastern front.” Suddenly, the whole world seemed to hang in the balance of what he was trying to do and she could see the bigger picture, thousands of little pieces like themselves contributing to the whole.

Helena pictured the rugged border region to the south. The High Tatras, which separated the two countries, were not like the rolling hills north of Biekowice. Rather, they were tall, snowcapped mountains, almost impossible to traverse on foot. “There couldn’t be a more dangerous route,” she protested. “Even if you could make it across the mountains, the border is guarded heavily.”

“Do you think you’re telling me something I don’t know? I don’t have a choice.” He set his jaw.

“But if they capture you...the things you know.”

“I’ll never tell,” he said resolutely, his eyes far away. He would sooner die than betray his men, or the people he was trying to help. She had to get him out to make sure that did not happen.

“They’ll kill you,” she ended, her voice nearly a wail. Usually the calm one, Helena could feel herself reaching a level of panic that reminded her of Ruth.

He grasped her by both shoulders. “Which is why I have to get out. And you, too,” he added. “I want to get you and your family to safety. But first I have to make contact with the partisans. Setting off blindly without some idea of their whereabouts would be, as you say, madness.” She nodded, for once in agreement. “The problem is that the partisans are so scattered across the countryside. We don’t know who’s in charge or how to make contact.”

She forced herself to breathe more calmly now. “Then how are we to find them?”
We.
His mission had become her own. She waited for him to rebuke her that it was not her fight, that or it was too dangerous for her to become involved.

“I’m told that the resistance in the city operates through the churches. If I could make it to Kraków and try to contact the underground, they might have some idea as to the whereabouts of the partisans.”

Sam could not, Helena reflected, go to the city. Though his Polish had been good enough to pass muster with a country policeman, his dark complexion would make him suspect as a Jew immediately. More to the point, he did not have papers to pass as a Pole if he was stopped. Her fear rose up again. She could not lose him. She wanted to ask him not to do this. Wasn’t just surviving enough under the circumstances? But seeing the stubborn way his jaw set, the dogged expression in his eyes, she knew that it was futile. No matter how much they felt for each other, or how much she wanted to keep him safe, this was about something bigger than the two of them, and he would not give up.

“Helena?” Ruth’s voice came across the barnyard, getting closer.

“Stay down,” Helena hissed. She climbed from the cellar in time to see Ruth’s head appear in the barn.

“Did you get it?” Ruth was talking about the squirrel, she realized.

“The trap was empty. I must have been wrong.” Her guilt rose at having gotten Ruth’s hopes up for more food.

“What on earth are you doing down there? It’s filthy.”

Helena noticed then that her dress was black with soot. “I found some old tools of Tata’s,” she lied. “I’m seeing if there is anything useful.”

A second passed, then another. From below came a scuffling sound and Helena coughed loudly to muffle it. “Well, come inside when you’re done,” Ruth said before turning back toward the house.

“My sister,” she explained when Ruth had disappeared back in the house. She was grateful that Sam had not seen her.

“She sounds like you.”

Helena ignored the comment. “I could go for you,” she offered tentatively, returning to the original subject. “To the city, I mean.”

His eyes widened with horror. “No.” His tone was firmer than she had ever heard him use. “I mean, that is very kind of you to offer, but it is much too dangerous.”

“But I can get into the city easily. I know how and no one will question me.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Helena, no. It’s out of the question.”

She looked at him levelly. “So you’re saying no women are helping?”

He looked down, avoiding her gaze. “No,” he said, unable to lie to her. “There are women in these resistance movements, couriers and such. But they have experience.”

“No one trains for this sort of thing,” she countered. “I’m strong...”

“And you’re smart and resourceful,” he added.

She felt herself blush. “And I know how to get around the city without being detected. I can do this.”

“You would be really good at it,” he agreed, and she found herself sitting a bit straighter. “But I’ve already endangered you enough. This isn’t your problem.”

“Not my problem,” she repeated slowly, her voice thick with disbelief. She jumped to her feet, anger flaring. “How can you say that to me? After all that I have done, everything I have risked for you, you still don’t consider me an ally. You came here because you wanted to help. Don’t I have to do that, too?”

He did not answer and she could see him wrestling with the dilemma—the undeniable truth of what she had said versus his desire to keep her safe. “I can’t lose you. Please don’t do this.”

“I have to.” She could no longer hold back the emotion in her voice. “Don’t you see? If I don’t follow this through it will have all been for nothing.” It was not just about him anymore, she reflected. The fight had become hers, too. “You don’t have a choice,” she added. “I’m your only hope or else you stay here until the Germans find you or the weather gets too bad for me to reach you and you are cut off and starve.”

“Or the war ends,” he countered. But his face clouded; the idea of remaining here and leaving the fight to others was unbearable to him.

“I’m your only chance,” she insisted. He sat back, relenting silently. “So what is it you need me to do?”

“You’ve got to go to the city and make contact with the resistance. But I’m not certain where. You must watch out, too, for impostors. There are German spies who infiltrate the resistance and then turn them in to be killed. There are criminals who pretend to be partisans to take advantage of people.” She nodded, understanding then the magnitude of what she was about to undertake.

“What do you want me to do if I make contact?”

“Tell them that I am trying to reach the Slovak partisans.” He paused, looking around the cellar, then crawled over a bag of animal feed that stood in the corner. He ripped off a piece of the paper bag, then picked up a scrap of coal from the ground and used it to scribble something on the paper. He handed it to her. Reading the note, her eyes widened. “But that’s everything—your name, your exact location. If it fell into the wrong hands...”