Magda's Daughter (32 page)

After checking Anna's airways once more, he examined her. Her arms and legs were covered in bloody cuts. None was deep, although several were pierced by large splinters from the shattered chair legs. And, although her skin was spattered with angry red blotches, her bones were intact beneath the bruises. He ran his fingers lightly over her spine and torso.

‘Will she be all right?' Breathless, Josef returned with Ned's bag, a bucket and a bundle of towels.

‘There doesn't appear to be any serious damage to her arms, legs or spine, but I think she may have cracked her ribs.' Ned inspected her skull for swellings or dents, but he found nothing. ‘Does the local hospital have an X-ray machine?' He took the towels from Josef and heaped them over Anna, in an attempt to raise her body temperature.

‘Yes, but our nearest hospital is in Zamosc and it's always busy. Even if we got Anna there, she could wait for days to be X-rayed.'

‘There'd be a problem getting her there?'

‘Some of the farmers have horses, carts and tractors, but it would take hours to reach the hospital in one of those, and it wouldn't be a very comfortable journey for Anna.'

‘No one has a car here?' Ned didn't know why he was asking. The only car he had seen in the village was Norbert's.

‘No.'

‘She should be in hospital.'

‘There's no way you can get her there before morning. And by then she will have sobered up.'

‘If she's alive.' Ned looked at the empty bottles again.

‘It's that serious?' The colour drained from Josef's face.

Ned didn't hold any false hope. ‘Yes.'

‘I know Anna. If she is going to die, she'd want to die here, in this house. But if she woke up in hospital she wouldn't thank you for taking her there. And not just because she hates leaving Stefan.' He gestured towards Anna's brother, who was sobbing quietly now.

‘She doesn't like hospitals?'

‘The local one, no.'

‘Why?'

‘Because she's been there a few times,' Josef admitted.

‘For alcohol-related injuries?'

‘She's been better lately – at least, she was before you and Helena arrived. You've seen her at her worst. And Weronika Janek upset her this morning. She's always felt guilty about taking over this house.'

ʻShe could have allowed Weronika to stay here after the war.'

‘Wiktor and some of the villagers threatened to burn the place down if she so much as allowed Weronika to step over the doorstep. I was a child and unable to help her. Stefan – well, you can see how he is. She made a choice to reject Weronika and protect us, but it wasn't an easy one for her. I know she feels terrible about it.'

‘And the priest?'

‘Was away in Warsaw at the time, giving evidence at a war crimes trial. By the time he returned, Weronika was long gone. I know he spoke to Wiktor and the other men about their attitude, but it didn't do much good. Everyone in the village promised to treat the women who had been enslaved by the Nazis respectfully, but they didn't. After Weronika, they weren't put to the test again. Word got out, and most of the women avoided returning to their homes in rural areas, settling instead in the cities where they weren't known.'

Ned glanced at the wreckage strewn around the floor. ‘It looks like Anna sat on the chair, overbalanced and toppled backwards.'

‘Two years ago she fell into the mirror, smashed it and cut her wrists.' Josef pointed to an empty frame above the nightstand.

‘That gives her another five years of bad luck according to the saying. Pity the chair broke and the floor was wood. If it had been carpeted she would have had a softer landing. She hasn't hit her head as far as I can tell, but it's difficult to diagnose concussion in a patient who is this drunk. I can't see any damage to her skull, but she has severe bruising on her abdomen and, from the way she winces when I touch her, I'm certain she has cracked her ribs.'

‘That also wouldn't be the first time.' Josef crouched beside Ned.

‘Should we get her up on the bed?'

‘Yes. The first thing we need to do is empty her stomach, before the alcohol is absorbed into her system. For pity's sake, tell Stefan she'll live. Perhaps then he'll quieten down enough for me to think.'

Josef spoke to Stefan and guided him out of the door. Ned removed his stethoscope from the bag that Josef had brought him; he almost hadn't packed it. As he drew closer to Anna, the smell of alcohol was overwhelming.

‘Two bottles of that rot-gut would be enough to kill any normal person,' he muttered.

‘It's the cheap local brew.' Josef picked up the pieces of chair scattered around Anna and cleared them into the corner to give Ned more space.

‘Bring that bucket and bowl over here.' Ned pointed to a large bowl under a water jug on the old-fashioned washstand. Josef brought it, together with the bucket he'd carried upstairs.

‘Help me lift her on the bed.' The room was furnished in similar style to the one he and Helena were sharing, with rustic pine furniture and elaborate embroideries. ‘Better fold back that tapestry bedspread, and lay her on something that can be easily washed. I'll see to the cuts after I've pumped her stomach.'

Josef rolled down the bedspread, eiderdown and top sheet.

‘You take her shoulders; I'll take her legs. Try not to move the towels,' Ned ordered. ‘On three. One, two, three …'

As soon as Anna was lying on her side on the bed, Ned removed a length of rubber tubing from his bag. ‘Did you find a funnel?'

Josef took one out of the bucket together with a beaker, packet of salt, and jug of warm water. He watched Ned heap large spoonfuls of salt into the beaker, pour water on top and mix it with a spoon.

‘You're going to force her to drink that.'

‘It should make her sick. As I said, the vodka in her stomach is better out than in. Hold her head firmly while I slide the tube in place.'

Half an hour later it was difficult to see who was more damp – Ned or Anna. Despite Josef's efforts to keep her still, Anna hadn't taken kindly to having her stomach washed out, and as much of the salt water had gone over Ned's jeans as inside Anna. But once he'd managed to get what he considered enough of the fluid into her, he'd withdrawn the tube and she brought up a quantity of alcohol tinged with traces of blood.

‘Now we need to get some real fluid into her.' Ned took the glass he'd left on the nightstand and emptied the remaining vodka into the bucket. ‘If we were in a hospital I'd just set up a drip, but as we're not, it will have to be the old-fashioned way.'

‘Which is?' Josef asked.

‘Cup and spoon. And water is all she should drink for a while. Her liver is grossly enlarged.'

‘I'm surprised she still has one,' Josef said.

‘How long has she been drinking this heavily?'

‘She doesn't all the time, just binges now and again. It started after the priest died three years ago.'

‘He kept her drinking in check?' Ned took surgical tweezers from his bag and set to work removing the wooden splinters from Anna's arms and legs. As he removed each one, he swabbed the area with antiseptic and covered it with a square of gauze that he took from a pack in his bag.

‘He didn't have to.' Josef moved the bucket away from the bed. ‘She would have been too ashamed to allow him to see her drink more than an occasional glass of home-made cherry wine. I wish you could have known the priest. He was a remarkable man. I have never witnessed such faith in humanity in any other person, Catholic, atheist, Marxist or capitalist. He took life, death, tragedy and joy in his stride, rejoicing with people during the good times and helping them to pray through the bad. Anna and Stefan were shattered by his loss, and I couldn't be here immediately afterwards because I was completing my last year in university. When I came back here to teach I caught Anna drinking vodka one morning when she was making breakfast. I tried talking to her but nothing I said made the slightest difference. Running the bar didn't help, either. For every drink she poured a customer she poured herself one “to keep them companyË®.'

‘Alcoholism is a common disease among publicans in Britain.'

Josef looked surprised. ‘When I was in France they told me alcohol was expensive in your country.'

‘It is, but it doesn't stop people from drinking.'

‘Like Russian soldiers. I've heard that if they can't get the real thing they'll drink anti-freeze.'

‘They must lead short lives.'

‘But, they'd argue, happy ones. I went to see the local doctor when I moved back here. I tried talking to him about Anna but he refused to believe her drinking was a problem. Probably because excessive drinking is a fact of life in all the Soviet states. People see it as a solution to their difficulties. The bottle offers instant oblivion and an escape from miserable reality. In Anna's case, the loss of the priest, as well as her family during the war.'

‘Not all her family.' Ned nodded to the display of photographs.

Josef took a deep breath. ‘No.'

‘I can't understand why I didn't notice the resemblance when I first saw her. Is she Helena's mother?'

‘I don't honestly know. Anna had two sisters …'

‘Her aunt, then?'

‘I've no idea. I don't remember Anna's sisters, although I've seen photographs of them.'

‘With a baby?'

‘No.'

‘But you knew that Helena was related to Anna when we walked into the bar,' Ned persisted.

‘I recognised Helena as the girl in these photographs.'

‘Did you ever ask Anna who she was?'

‘Anna told me that she was the daughter of a dear friend of hers who lived in the West. I knew she had a friend in the West because of the letters and parcels we received every month.'

Ned remembered seeing Magda pack the parcels. ‘Clothes, food, tights, make-up, chocolate?'

‘Soap powder, shaving cream, jeans and cologne for me. Magda Janek was a good friend to Anna and to me. I always had more to eat and more toys than any other kid in the village.'

‘And all the time Magda told Helena that she was sending them to her family.' Ned returned the pack of gauze to his bag.

Josef glanced at the photographs once more. ‘Anna will kill me when she wakes up and finds out that I allowed you into this room.'

‘You didn't. I carne in here to see why she screamed,' Ned reminded him.

‘Anna never remembers much about what happened when she wakes after one of these bouts. I could tell her she fell in the kitchen, and that I carried her up here.'

‘And treated her?'

‘I've looked after her before when she's hurt herself.'

‘As badly as this?'

Josef sighed. ‘I could say that I sent for the doctor. I don't suppose you would consider not telling her you were here?' He looked at Ned hopefully.

‘Not a chance.'

‘I was afraid you'd say that.'

‘Are you surprised? Helena's going out of her mind thinking she's the result of some Nazi breeding experiment! You can't expect me to keep quiet about this.' He nodded towards the photographs.

‘Anna's put up with so much in her life –'

‘So has Helena since we arrived here,' Ned said shortly. He paused, thinking. ‘Anna didn't want us to stay here because she was afraid that Helena would find out that either she or one of her sisters was her birth mother.' He took a breath. ‘Is Helena illegitimate?'

‘I don't know, and that's the truth. I told you that the priest brought me to Anna the night of the massacre. I don't remember much before that night, and I certainly don't remember ever seeing Anna with a baby since.'

‘I hope you're around to do some translating tomorrow,' Ned said harshly.

‘Don't think badly of Anna. You know, she told me to do all I could to ensure that Magda's ashes were buried with Adam Janek. It wasn't easy to persuade Wiktor Niklas to allow us to open the grave. But Anna gave me money, and Wiktor has never been able to resist the lure of cash he hasn't had to work for.'

‘How much did you pay Wiktor?' Ned wondered why he hadn't realised that Josef had bribed Wiktor. Josef had spent at least two hours on the morning before the ceremony at the Niklas farm. It wouldn't have taken him that long simply to make arrangements.

‘Two hundred dollars.'

‘Two hundred dol … Where did you get that kind of money?'

‘Anna had a hundred. Government officials occasionally pay her in dollars. It's illegal but they're fond of Anna. And I had dollars from my year in Paris. I had a part-time bar job and I changed my wages into dollars. It is, or rather was, my fall-back money.'

‘Two hundred dollars was all of your and Anna's savings?'

‘Most of our foreign savings. There's no point in hoarding zlotys. There's not much that you can buy with them other than food if you can find it, and a man can only eat so much.' Josef picked up the last pieces of chair and heaped them on to the pile in the corner. ‘All that is fit for now is the stove.'

Ned removed the last splinter from Anna's arm. ‘I've finished but we still need to get her temperature up. Do you have any washable blankets that we can put on top of these towels and the sheet?'

‘I'll go and look. Don't you want to strap up her ribs first?'

‘The modern thinking is to leave the ribs to heal naturally with­ out strapping them.' Ned ran his fingers over the bruised area on Anna's torso to make sure the bones hadn't splintered.

‘In Poland we strap them up,' Josef said firmly.

‘It's more important we get her temperature up at the moment. If we don't, you'll have to call an ambulance.'

‘What ambulance?'

‘You don't have ambulances here?'