William Brodrick - The Day of the Lie

‘Nothing.’

Roza slowly opened her hands. She looked down, seeing they were empty. There would be no fine thread of attachment; nothing that would ever allow anyone to uncover the birth in prison to a murdered father; nothing that would ever lead her child back to a deranged mother in a damp cell.

‘You’re probably right,’ said the official, throwing caution to the wind. ‘Keep well out, that’s what I say Leave the mite unencumbered.’

Roza sat motionless, feeling the weight and silence of the ocean all around her. She was sinking slowly into the sand. Sediment clouded her mind. The little man ticked some boxes and then closed the folder, slid it into his briefcase and stood up.

‘Well done,’ he said, dabbing his mouth with a crumpled handkerchief. He seemed surprised that a social degenerate had been capable of an act of common sense. ‘You made the right decision.’

At the door, he turned, nodding profound assurances, like a nurse saying the scratch will heal. A guard appeared, summoning Roza with a lazy hand. They walked side by side down the corridor, retracing the route to her cell. Passing a barred window on the floor below, Roza slowed. Beyond the prison wall she’d glimpsed the grubby bureaucrat nodding more assurances to a slender woman dressed in a long dark coat. Her face was pale and drawn; her hair short and black. Head bobbing, he handed over the child as if it were a prize in a raffle. The guard’s hand closed around her elbow.

‘Can’t I watch to say goodbye?’ she whispered.

‘Back to your cell.’

Moments later the door slammed shut.

The lock turned.

All at once, Roza seemed to surface from the deep. She sucked in the air and fell on her hands and knees. Sputtering and gasping, she rolled over, digging her nails into her breasts and stomach. The other women watched, expressionless, lined around the room like tied sacks of refuse. Roza couldn’t weep. She had no tears left. When all the noise had been expelled, she went to sleep.

‘Mojeska.’

Six months had passed, the empty hours falling away like water from a dripping tap. Roza hadn’t spoken a word to anyone. She seemed not to hear what was said to her. She’d eaten mechanically with a voracious appetite. She’d left the wall unscratched. A deathly composure had displaced all her emotions.

‘Mojeska, out,’ repeated the voice, louder.

She looked up. The cell door was open. A guard was signalling her into the corridor. Without speaking, she obeyed. They went down some stairs to a room where her photograph was taken. Then, with a shove, she stumbled through a door into the main yard. The sun crashed upon her head like the blow of a mallet. She felt a cool breeze and her skin tingled. The guard was moving quickly.

They’re going to shoot me.

Her heart beat out of time. Gratitude flushed through her veins. But another guard was heaving back the entrance gate. She saw the main street. Brack was on the pavement smoking. He flicked the stub on the floor and stamped it flat. A heavy shove sent her reeling towards him.

‘Goodbye, Roza,’ he said, nodding at the men behind.

‘ What?’

‘There’s always a right and a wrong choice, Roza. You made the wrong one.

‘You said you wouldn’t let me out-’

‘You should have told me about the Shoemaker. That was the right choice.’

Roza spun around. The prison door had been shut. There was no outside handle. She struck it with clenched fists, kicking the iron panels, begging the men on the other side to open up. She turned to Brack, hands joined, imploring. ‘Shoot me? Please, Otto, shoot me. I don’t want to live, I’ve nothing left… please…

‘Yes, you have. You’ve got the Shoemaker.’

Brack pulled his revolver from its belt holster. With a flick of his thumb the chamber fell open. He withdrew a single round and held it out to Roza.

‘Be grateful. This was meant for you.’ He tossed the bullet up and down as if it were loose change. ‘I argued for your life. But if you don’t want it, take this.’

Roza saw her fingers pick up the small brass jacket with the lead cap. She felt its coldness as she closed her hand around it. Unsteadily she walked away towards a road junction while Brack’s voice roared down a kind of tunnel.

‘I’ll find him, Roza. One day I’ll find him.’

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.

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.