Chapter 52

52

Jana was too weak to get out of bed that day, so Andrej went off on his own to make further enquiries on casualties. She waited, staring at the ceiling, praying for good news about survivors from the battle. After a while, she dozed, and awoke as Andrej returned, pulling up a chair to her bedside. Her body tensed in anticipation.

He took her hand and smiled. ‘I've found Nela in another ward. She's got some nasty injuries, but she's going to make it.'

Jana gasped. ‘She survived! I thought she was lost. Thank God.'

‘She was lucky. Two resistance fighters close to where she was found were not so lucky.'

Jana swallowed hard. ‘Was one of them Pavel: Pavel Krejci?'

Andrej nodded. ‘That was the name on the list. He was dead on arrival. Did you know him?'

Her chest tightened in pain as memories flashed through her mind: them eating onion soup in their little favourite restaurant, his bright eyes after she'd kissed him outside the bookshop, his bitterness when he'd spied her together with Andrej. Had she really known him? Had he betrayed her to the Nazis? He'd denied it, but now she would never know for sure.

Andrej wiped away a tear from her cheek. ‘I'm sorry if he was a friend.'

He paused, giving her time. Moments passed before she asked, ‘And Egon?'

Tears filled Andrej's eyes and he shook his head. ‘He got caught in the crossfire between the Soviets and the Germans.'

She thought of how Egon and Ramona had embraced the night before he'd left for Prague, and gave a shuddering sigh, sadness pressing down on her.

They sat a few moments in silence, Jana taking shallow breaths as pain from her wounds shot through her.

‘I have to find Papa and Babi.' It was an effort to talk as exhaustion swamped over her.

‘I'll contact the police station and find out what I can.' His voice was tired, his face drawn.

‘Thank you, Andrej. One more thing. Brandt. Is he dead?'

‘Probably, but I don't know for sure.'

‘Go back to your ward and get some rest,' said Jana, worried how ill he looked.

After he left, a nurse came and gave her newly arrived medication. Within moments Jana gave in to a merciful sleep.

Pandemonium filled the streets. Jana looked around her in awe as after four days in hospital, she gingerly made her way with Andrej on her arm. People danced, Czech music blared and Czech flags hung from every fa?ade. It was strange to see Soviet tanks parade down the streets, and the ever-present Wehrmacht uniforms replaced by Soviet ones. Children and women threw garlands over the necks of beaming Soviet soldiers, and young men clambered onto the tanks, pumping their fists, shouting words of freedom.

But not everyone's face shared the same euphoria. There were those queuing up outside the town hall and Red Cross stations, desperate for news of missing loved ones. Scenes of the uprising were everywhere: the barricades being dismantled by the soviets, blood-stained pavements and walls, and buildings riddled with bullet holes.

‘How many Czechs have been wounded or died in liberating our city?' asked Jana.

‘Reports are unconfirmed, but numbers run into thousands.'

‘They were all so brave.' Jana's voice broke and Andrej gave her arm a gentle squeeze.

When they arrived at the police station, Jana sighed to see the queue snake out of the front door and around the block, one anxious face after another. Andrej had tried telephoning but no one had picked up the receiver.

Andrej indicated a low, stone wall. ‘Sit down and rest while I try to talk myself into the station as an ex-police captain.' She watched him walk away, slow and stiff from his injuries, thanking God that he was alive, still hardly able to believe he was back in her life. A moment of joy warmed her heart but fear for Papa and Babi snatched it away.

The clock above the police Station told her she'd been waiting for nearly two hours, watching a woman in a pink sunhat shuffle a few steps at a time as the queue moved forward. The woman still wasn't half way to the front. Jana felt hot and dizzy as the midday sun shone down and she had nothing to drink. She fixed her eyes on the entrance, willing Andrej to appear with good news.

Finally, he came. Her heart lifted; he was smiling. ‘We've found them! Both your father and grandmother are alive. They are being checked over in a Red Cross first aid centre. I have the address.'

The school had been taken over by the Red Cross, the classrooms being used to administer first aid to those whose injuries did not require hospital treatment or were being given a general check-up before being sent home. Andrej and Jana approached the front desk where three nurses flipped through registers giving out information to a queue of people. When a place became free, Jana stepped up to nurse and gave her father and Babi's names. The nurse ran her finger down the pages until she said, ‘Aha. Here we are. Classroom five.' She looked up at Jana, peering over her reading glasses. ‘Just to prepare you. They were freed from Gestapo headquarters.'

Jana swayed a moment and held onto Andrej, ascending the stairs with trepidation.

As she stood in the doorway of the classroom set up with camp beds, she saw Papa and Babi straight away. They were sitting next to one another on a bed by the window; small, fragile figures, mother and son together, now safe, alive. She rushed to them, calling their names, and they looked at her, startled then joyous. They stood shakily and held each other in a clumsy embrace, Jana hindered by her wounds and her father by bandaged hands.

Once their sobs and tears had subsided, they sat in a row on the bed with Jana in the middle. Andrej came to join them, standing by the window, and Jana introduced him. Then she looked down at her father's heavily bandaged hands. ‘What happened, Papa?' She lay a hand on his arm and looked into his face. He now had a beard, the hairs coarse and grey, lines had deepened around his eyes, but what struck her most was the gauntness of his face, the sunken cheeks.

‘For weeks we were held in the police station. It was chaos there; most of the time, they were screaming at each other about raids and round-ups. They were panicking. Things turned for the worse when they handed us over to the Gestapo.'

He paused and she waited for him to continue.

‘You don't need to know the details, my darling. But my days as a puppeteer are over.'

Panic rising, she turned to Babi.

‘They smashed his fingers, one by one. All of them.' Babi's head sunk.

Jana cried out, ‘No Papa, no! Why?'

‘They'd heard rumours that you were aiding Jewish children and wanted to know where you were.'

‘But you didn't know where I was!'

‘Do you think I would have told them if I had?'

She stared down at her father's bound hands in disbelief: his strong, skilful, beautiful hands that created life and character from a piece of wood. His gentle, loving hands that reached across the kitchen table to hold hers, or stroked her head when she was in search of comfort. Hot tears coursed down her cheeks and she lay her head on his shoulder. ‘Papa, oh Papa…' No other words came to her.

‘There, there,' he said, his lifeless hands motionless in his lap. ‘I'm one of the lucky ones; I survived.'

It was true, and so was Babi. Chest heaving, she turned to Babi.

‘What happened to you?' But although she'd asked the question, she was terrified of the answer.

‘They had no proof of anything. I played senile and thoroughly annoyed them with my nonsense. They played their mental games with me: bright lights and music blasting. Then made me stand naked in a barrel of iced water. I can't lie, I was ready for them to shoot me. But then they just left me; it was just before the uprising and I suspect they knew things were happening and had more important jobs to handle. I didn't see the Gestapo again, just a warden that gave me water and the occasional crust of bread. Then one day, the door opened and there stood a Soviet soldier.'