BooksBarbecue
Back All the Days of Our Lives Save as PDF
Chapters (84)
  1. All the Days of Our Lives
  2. 1945
  3. 1931-1944
  4. I
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. 1946
  28. II
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. III
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. Twenty-Nine
  37. IV
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-One
  40. Thirty-Two
  41. V
  42. Thirty-Three
  43. Thirty-Four
  44. Thirty-Five
  45. VI
  46. Thirty-Six
  47. Thirty-Seven
  48. 1948-1949
  49. VII
  50. Thirty-Eight
  51. Thirty-Nine
  52. Forty
  53. VIII
  54. Forty-One
  55. Forty-Two
  56. Forty-Three
  57. IX
  58. Forty-Four
  59. Forty-Five
  60. Forty-Six
  61. X
  62. Forty-Seven
  63. Forty-Eight
  64. Forty-Nine
  65. Fifty
  66. Fifty-One
  67. Fifty-Two
  68. Fifty-Three
  69. Fifty-Four
  70. XI
  71. Fifty-Five
  72. Fifty-Six
  73. XII
  74. Fifty-Seven
  75. Fifty-Eight
  76. XIII
  77. Fifty-Nine
  78. XIV
  79. Sixty
  80. XV
  81. Sixty-One
  82. Sixty-Two
  83. 1953
  84. All the Days of Our Lives

‘Can you really not go back to Poland?’

‘We had one friend – he was determined to go back. He said he would write and tell us when it was safe. We never heard another word from him. The Russians own my country now.’ His voice was very bitter. ‘Soviets. Reds. They are in charge – no one says no to Papa Stalin, it seems. Not the British, the Americans: no one. Poland has been smashed apart. You know, they have moved the borders west – by about a hundred and fifty miles? So, my home is now in Ukraine – no home for us any more. We are all . . .’ He made a scattering motion with his free hand.

He looked into her eyes. She could just see the dying flames reflected in his.

‘You have to understand – my country has had many different borders before this war. Many wars before, fighting, people occupying this land and that. And so many hatreds: Ukrainians hate Poles as they were given their land; Lithuanians in the north hate us, as we took Wilno; some people hating Jews for reasons of wealth and religion, some Jews hating us . . . We are a quarrelsome country – but now, it has been a funeral pyre. And we are occupied by Russia . . .’

He stopped, gave a heavy sigh. ‘Some people here – Poles, I mean – can’t accept. One day they will go back, they say. Poland will be free. But I don’t know. Everything is broken. All I can do is go forward, not thinking of the past too much. We are here. We have to make a home somehow.

They were both silent. The fire shifted.

‘Katie?’ Gently he stroked back her hair, leaving his big, warm hand on her head. She heard anxiety in his voice and turned to him.

‘Thank you.’ She turned her head and kissed the delicate skin of his wrist. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

‘Dear Katinka . . .’ he lowered his hand and his eyes searched hers. ‘You are like home to me, and a new life. Will you stay with me and we make a life together? Will you be my wife?’

She moved nearer, until their faces were very close, in the darkness. Their noses were almost touching.

‘You are my home too,’ she said. There was nothing – no one – she wanted but this. ‘Yes, my darling Marek – I will.’

XIII

MOLLY

Fifty-Nine

February 1949

‘There’s a letter for you, Miss Fox.’

As soon as Molly got through the front door, blowing on her frozen hands, her landlady Mrs Hodgkins came sliding out of her room on the ground floor. Her husband was a sick man and she always moved with an air of trying not to wake somebody. She was holding out a white postcard.

‘I thought I’d better take it in for safekeeping,’ she said.

‘Oh – thank you.’ Molly took it and went up the bare staircase to her room.