willpower not to run after them. At last he managed to turn himself round
and direct his feet towards the town.
Nobody stopped him or questioned him when he reached Brest after a short walk through fields and smallholdings. A solitary policeman on a street corner stared straight through
him. The town seemed empty. Most of the shops were boarded up. Stray dogs sniffed around garbage bins, eyeing Gregor with interest and approaching him on crouched legs, half pleading, half
calculating. Gregor tried not to think about how hungry these animals might be.
He found an old man sitting on steps outside an apartment block and showed him Eva’s address. The man sucked on toothless gums and muttered directions in an accent so thick Gregor could
barely understand a word. He thanked him and walked on, taking wrong turn after wrong turn, feeling the strangeness of this place. No street kiosks selling newspapers and tobacco. No markets with
their cackling geese. No Jewish urchins with their black pillbox hats and corkscrew curls.
Finally he found the street and walked along it, noting the shuttered windows and broken glass. He knocked on the peeling black-painted door that was his mother’s. No answer. Again he
rapped. This time he heard footsteps and the door opened a centimetre. Gregor’s nose crinkled at the tangy odour of a scared human being. She peered out at him.
‘There’s nobody here. All gone east.’
‘My mother, Eva Fischer . . .’ Gregor fumbled in his rucksack and found a photograph – Eva at a picnic at the von Matkes’, sitting on a plaid rug, head tossed back so her
long neck was exposed, dark hair falling like a curtain over her shoulders.
The woman took the picture between grubby fingers and stared at it, a grin forming on her face. ‘I remember her. She go east too.’ She handed back the photo.
‘Who took her?’
‘Who you think? Fairies?’ She cackled and the door slammed in his face.
Gregor walked very slowly back the way he’d come, feeling nothing, neither pain, nor grief nor fear. No time for that now. Make plans. His rucksack held bread, sausage and apples
and a bottle of water, along with a change of clothes. How long would these provisions last? He’d been banking on his mother having additional supplies they could take with them on the
journey to meet the Gronowski boys.
Two mongrels jumped out of a side-street, ears back, teeth bared. He kicked out at them and they moved away, growling. He walked on, ears straining for the sound of the dogs’ feet padding
up behind him.
He found he was standing beside an abandoned school. The dogs had vanished. He walked round to the back and broke a ground-floor window, managed to squeeze himself through like
a cat burglar and found himself in what had been the cloakroom, still smelling of damp clothes. A sign in Polish – which he could read well now – told him not to wear outdoor shoes in
the gymnasium.
Gregor brushed the shards of glass to one side and made himself a makeshift bed with his rucksack as a pillow and his overcoat wrapped round him. He daren’t try the light switch. If only
he weren’t so damn scared of the dark. But the dogs couldn’t get him in here; there was nothing to be frightened of.
As he lay there he caught sight of something red and metallic on the tiled floor beneath the benches. He reached out and picked it up. It felt cold as stone in his hand. A mouth organ. Some
schoolboy had dropped it here. Gregor was about to place it on the bench when he stopped himself. What chance was there its owner would ever come back? He slipped it into his coat pocket. Why
should the Russians have it?
As he lay there, too tired for sleep to take him immediately, his mother’s image floated into his mind. What happened to you, Mama? Can your friend Vargá still save you? He
blew a single plaintive note on the mouth organ, very softly, for company, and stared out of the broken window-pane.
Seven
Marie
Vienna, May
and direct his feet towards the town.
Nobody stopped him or questioned him when he reached Brest after a short walk through fields and smallholdings. A solitary policeman on a street corner stared straight through
him. The town seemed empty. Most of the shops were boarded up. Stray dogs sniffed around garbage bins, eyeing Gregor with interest and approaching him on crouched legs, half pleading, half
calculating. Gregor tried not to think about how hungry these animals might be.
He found an old man sitting on steps outside an apartment block and showed him Eva’s address. The man sucked on toothless gums and muttered directions in an accent so thick Gregor could
barely understand a word. He thanked him and walked on, taking wrong turn after wrong turn, feeling the strangeness of this place. No street kiosks selling newspapers and tobacco. No markets with
their cackling geese. No Jewish urchins with their black pillbox hats and corkscrew curls.
Finally he found the street and walked along it, noting the shuttered windows and broken glass. He knocked on the peeling black-painted door that was his mother’s. No answer. Again he
rapped. This time he heard footsteps and the door opened a centimetre. Gregor’s nose crinkled at the tangy odour of a scared human being. She peered out at him.
‘There’s nobody here. All gone east.’
‘My mother, Eva Fischer . . .’ Gregor fumbled in his rucksack and found a photograph – Eva at a picnic at the von Matkes’, sitting on a plaid rug, head tossed back so her
long neck was exposed, dark hair falling like a curtain over her shoulders.
The woman took the picture between grubby fingers and stared at it, a grin forming on her face. ‘I remember her. She go east too.’ She handed back the photo.
‘Who took her?’
‘Who you think? Fairies?’ She cackled and the door slammed in his face.
Gregor walked very slowly back the way he’d come, feeling nothing, neither pain, nor grief nor fear. No time for that now. Make plans. His rucksack held bread, sausage and apples
and a bottle of water, along with a change of clothes. How long would these provisions last? He’d been banking on his mother having additional supplies they could take with them on the
journey to meet the Gronowski boys.
Two mongrels jumped out of a side-street, ears back, teeth bared. He kicked out at them and they moved away, growling. He walked on, ears straining for the sound of the dogs’ feet padding
up behind him.
He found he was standing beside an abandoned school. The dogs had vanished. He walked round to the back and broke a ground-floor window, managed to squeeze himself through like
a cat burglar and found himself in what had been the cloakroom, still smelling of damp clothes. A sign in Polish – which he could read well now – told him not to wear outdoor shoes in
the gymnasium.
Gregor brushed the shards of glass to one side and made himself a makeshift bed with his rucksack as a pillow and his overcoat wrapped round him. He daren’t try the light switch. If only
he weren’t so damn scared of the dark. But the dogs couldn’t get him in here; there was nothing to be frightened of.
As he lay there he caught sight of something red and metallic on the tiled floor beneath the benches. He reached out and picked it up. It felt cold as stone in his hand. A mouth organ. Some
schoolboy had dropped it here. Gregor was about to place it on the bench when he stopped himself. What chance was there its owner would ever come back? He slipped it into his coat pocket. Why
should the Russians have it?
As he lay there, too tired for sleep to take him immediately, his mother’s image floated into his mind. What happened to you, Mama? Can your friend Vargá still save you? He
blew a single plaintive note on the mouth organ, very softly, for company, and stared out of the broken window-pane.
Seven
Marie
Vienna, May
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