The Winter Guest. Pam Jenoff
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her head, as if she had not considered that her handiwork would have value to anyone outside of the house. “Perhaps with Christmas coming I can barter something knitted for a pair at market.”
Christmas. The word sounded foreign, as if from another lifetime. “Remember how Mama would decorate the house with mistletoe?”
“Holly,” her sister corrected, her voice crackling with authority. With Ruth, there was always a rejoinder. “And we would sing carols until she would give us a coin to stop.” Helena smiled fondly at the memory, one of many that only she and Ruth shared. “Then we would open our gifts and Tata would pretend to fall asleep early...”
“He didn’t...” Helena began. Tata hadn’t pretended to sleep; he had passed out from the half bottle of homemade potato vodka he consumed during Wigilia, their Christmas Eve feast. Even as a young child, Helena had known the truth. How could two people live the same moment but remember it so differently?
“Of course he did,” she relented, allowing Ruth to win. Ruth sniffed with quiet satisfaction.
Helena brushed aside the memories, forcing herself to focus on more practical matters. “Or we could sell it,” she said, gesturing with her head toward the corner. The sewing machine, which Tata had bought for their mother as a wedding present, had been her most prized possession. It would fetch a fair price, even from someone who wanted to use the parts for scrap.
“No!”
“Ruti, we must be practical. We need food and coal.”
But Ruth shook her head. “We need it. That’s why Mama left it to me. She knew you wouldn’t keep it safe.”
A lump of anger formed in Helena’s throat. Had Mama actually bequeathed the sewing machine to Ruth while she was still coherent enough? More likely, Ruth had simply presumed. Helena swallowed, struggling not to retort. Ruth clung to the machine because letting it go meant acknowledging that things had changed permanently, and that Mama was not coming back.
Helena walked back to the fireplace where Karolina played by the hearth. “Let’s get you dressed.” She held out her arms, but the child hung back, looking up uncertainly at Ruth. It was Ruth from whom the children sought care and affection, preferring her softer voice and gentle, uncalloused hands.
Ruth crossed the room gracefully, appearing to swirl rather then walk, her skirt a gentle halo around her—not like Helena, who seemed to crash headlong at full force. She scooped Karolina up with effort. “She’s getting too old to be carried all of the time,” Helena scolded. “You’ll spoil her.” Ruth did not reply, but smiled sweetly, smoothing her hair and kissing the top of her head. Dorie and Karolina had had so much less of their parents than the others. Ruth tried to make up for it, fashioning little treats when she could and singing to them and rocking them at night. Karolina eyed Helena reproachfully now as Ruth carried her past. Helena opened her mouth, searching for the right words. She loved the children, too, though perhaps she never told them as much. But they needed to be strong in these times.
Helena walked past her sisters to the bedroom. Fingering the stain on her sleeve, Helena’s eyes roamed longingly toward the armoire. She opened the door. Mama’s clothing still hung neatly, as clean and pressed as the day she had gone to the hospital. Her church dress was practically new, the gleaming buttons kept immaculately. Even her two everyday dresses were nicer that Helena’s, having been spared the hardships of the woods these many months.
Helena reached inside and pulled one of the dresses out. She remembered Christmas two years earlier, when Ruth had opened a box to reveal a new skirt, pink and crisp. “There was only money for one,” Mama explained. “And Ruth’s bigger. You’ll have her old one.” It had been a pretext. Though Ruth was a bit fuller figured, the truth was that she was the prettier one with the better chance of marriage, and it was always presumed that she should have the nicer, more feminine things. There had never been any talk of a suitor for Helena, even in happier times.
“What are you doing?” Helena jumped and spun around. Ruth had appeared behind her, stealthily as a cat.
Helena held up the dress. “I was thinking of borrowing this.”
“Nonsense,” Ruth snapped. “Yours is good enough for traipsing through the woods and doing chores. You’d only soil it and we need to leave it for when Mama comes home.” She eyed Helena warily, daring her to argue. Then Ruth took the dress from her and returned it to the armoire, closing the door firmly behind her.
The sun was dropping low to the trees later that afternoon as Helena neared the chapel and pushed open the door. “Dzie´n dobry...?” she called into the dank semidarkness. Silence greeted her. Surely the soldier could not have fled in his condition. For a second, she wondered if she’d imagined him. He could be dead, she thought with more dismay than she should have felt for someone she’d only met once. His wounds had seemed serious enough.
She pulled back the shutter that covered one of the broken windows to allow the pale light to filter in. The soldier was curled up in a tight ball on the ground, much as he had been when she found him, but farther from the door. She hesitated as excitement and alarm rose in her. What was she thinking by coming here? She didn’t know this man, or whether he was here to help or do harm.
Helena walked over and knelt to feel his cheek, caught off guard by the softness of his skin. She was relieved to find he was still warm. Then she remembered Karolina’s illness, barely passed. Had she made a mistake by coming and possibly bringing sickness to this man in his already-weakened state?
The soldier moved suddenly beneath her hand and she jumped. His eyes snapped open. He stiffened, almost as Mama had when she feared pain in the hospital.
“It’s okay,” Helena said, holding her hands low and open. “I’m the one who brought you here.”
He forced himself to a sitting position, trying without success to stifle a whimper. “Who are you?” His Polish was stiff and a bit accented.
“I’m called Helena. I live close to the village. You should rest,” she added.
But he sat even straighter, clenching and unclenching his hands. His chocolate eyes, set just a shade too close together, darted back and forth. “Does anyone else know that I’m here?”
“Not that I’m aware,” she replied quickly. “I haven’t told anyone.” She wanted to say that someone else might have heard the crash, but it seemed unwise to upset him more.
He stared at her, disbelieving. “Are you sure?”
“I haven’t told anyone,” she repeated, suddenly annoyed. “Why would I have gone to all of the trouble to save you just to turn you in?”
He shrugged, somewhat calmer now. “A reward, maybe. Who knows why people do anything these days?”
“No one knows that you’re here,” she replied, her voice soothing.
“Where is ‘here’ exactly?” he asked.
“Southern Poland, Małopolska. You’re about twenty kilometers from the city.”
“Kraków?” Helena nodded, sensing from his expression that her answer was not what he expected. “That puts us about an hour from the southern border, doesn’t it?”
“Roughly, yes. Perhaps a bit more.”
His face relaxed slightly. “You’re real.” She cocked her head. “I thought I might have been delirious and dreamed you. And then I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”
“I’m sorry,” she replied quickly. “It’s hard to get away.” He had rugged features, an uneven nose and a chin that jutted forth defiantly. But his eyelashes were longer than she knew a man could have, and there was a softness to his gaze that kept him from being too intimidating.
“I