One Crow Alone Read online

  The stations struggled to keep trains running. Always crowded. Always slow. But warmer than the street. As soon as the first frosts cut at the windows, every homeless person headed underground. And no one looked at the woman with arms outstretched at the top of the stairs. He too stepped around her. You can’t help everyone. Sometimes it was hard enough to help yourself.

  Up on the street the other workers fanned across the icy road, drawing out umbrellas as wet snow began to fall from the orange-domed London night sky.

  Struggling with his own umbrella, he caught sight of a girl, face wet with snow, darting between the passengers, holding out a piece of paper. Not much older than his daughter. An illegal, by the looks of her.

  God knows where these people came from. Didn’t they know it wasn’t any better here?

  * * *

  Like a moth in the rain, Magda dodged between the bent backs and go-away eyes outside the train station.

  Snowflakes wet the paper in her hand.

  She saw a man glancing up as he began to open his umbrella. She caught his eye and hurried toward him.

  “I try to find this address?”

  He did not look away. He peered down at Babula’s faded handwriting and pointed across the road. “Along the heath, one of the roads on the left, I think.” Then, with the quick, embarrassed smile of impromptu charity and a mumbled “good luck,” he flicked up his umbrella and went on his way.

  * * *

  It was quiet when Magda and Ivan got away from the bustling train station. Behind partly boarded-up railings on the other side of the road, the overgrown bushes and trees of Hampstead Heath leaned their shaggy silhouettes. Lone tire tracks, perfect as tram lines, trailed in the snow toward the end of the road. A street light flickered, buzzed, and went out.

  They walked along, feet falling weary on the fresh snow that still dropped from above.

  Magda thought constantly of her mother. So near now.

  To tell Mama that Babula had gone? How would that be? She could remember the crying behind the shutters. What if Mama cried again? There is no Babula to tell you to go outside, even though you are too old to play.

  The wind gathered, a wild sighing from the dark woodland stretching out across the heath. A panic fluttered within her. Eating her cold insides. For there was another question she had not let herself ask before, and still she pushed it away.

  What if she’s not there. What then?

  She looked again at the address in her hand.

  This was the road.

  The street was gated—six-foot-high railings topped with razor wire. She peered in at the circular drive of tall, detached townhouses. There were lights behind heavily curtained windows.

  This is where Mama lives?

  A dim light emanated from behind the steamy window of a guard’s hut. Inside it, the shadow of a seated man—chin resting on his chest.

  Ivan knocked on the window. The guard stirred and opened his eyes.

  “What shall I say?” she whispered.

  “Tell him your mother works here.”

  The guard caught sight of the two hooded faces at his window. He frowned.

  “I look for my mother,” Magda said loudly through the glass.

  With a general air of wariness the man slid the window open a crack. “And?” he said in Polish.

  “My mother, she works here.” Magda held up the address. Pushed the scrap of paper toward the opening.

  “Dayą.” The man grabbed it with clumsy fingers. Yawned as he read it. He looked back at her blankly.

  “Please,” she said.

  “Czekają!” He thrust the paper back through the window, closed it, and got up. He came out behind the fence and unlocked the gates. Pushing them open, he glanced down the deserted street. “I’ll give you five minutes. But I’m watching you.” He let them in. “It’s the fourth house on the left.”

  Magda padded along the pavement, looked at the address on her piece of paper, and back to the number on the door of the house.

  No. 7

  A holly bush arched over the front garden, sharp leaves perfect with snow. Curtains were drawn at the tall windows, but light spilled from behind them.

  She took a deep breath and climbed the wide stone steps.

  Her hand wavered.

  And with one nervous glance at the guard eyeing her from his hut, and one at Ivan waiting shiftily on the pavement, she knocked.

  Noises from inside. Footsteps.

  A clinking of locks.

  From behind a chain, the door opened a crack.

  “Yes?” A woman’s face appeared. She looked nervously at Ivan, then down the street. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Is Maria Krol here?” Magda said.

  “What?”

  “Maria Krol.”

  The woman pushed the door shut. They heard her calling out: “Mike.” There were loud footfalls on a staircase. Whispering behind the door: “Someone looking for Maria.”

  The chain was taken off and a man came out, hands in the pockets of his trousers. He glanced along the road and raised a hand at the guard, turned back to Magda. “Can I help?”

  “I am looking for Maria Krol,” Magda said.

  “And?”

  “I am daughter. I come from Poland.”

  “Her daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why’ve you come here?”

  “Her telephone is dead. I only have your address.”

  “She doesn’t work for us anymore.”

  “What is it, Mike?” The man’s wife had come out onto the steps behind him.

  “Maria’s daughter.”

  “When she leave?” Magda said. Panic thrashing away inside her. “When?”

  “A month ago.”

  “One month? But—it cannot be possible?”

  “Well, it’s a fact.” The man looked faintly annoyed.

  “Where she go?” Magda said.

  “I don’t know. Poland, I guess.”

  The lights in the hallway suddenly went out.

  “Dad!” came a shout from inside. There was a pattering of footsteps. A small girl in pajamas came out. She was holding a torch and shone it in Magda’s face.

  “Stop that, Jo,” said the woman.

  “But we’re in the middle of a game—”

  “Come on, it’s freezing.” The woman pulled the child back inside. “You can’t stand outside in your jim-jams. I’ll put the generator on, Mike.”

  They turned, the torch wavering in the dark hallway.

  “How can I find her?” Magda said.

  “I don’t know. Sorry. Look. I really can’t help you—”

  The lights in the house came back on at the faint rumbling of a generator somewhere deep inside.

  There was a clanging of the gates at the end of the road and a small car pulled in and passed slowly by. Inside the car, a woman’s pale face turned momentarily toward the two strangely dressed figures outside No. 7.

  The man glanced down the road again. “Look, you’ve really got to go now,” he said. And with a half-sorry shrug he stepped back inside his house and closed the door.

  Just like that.

  Magda stood, frozen, on the steps.

  “He has said she is not there?” Ivan asked.

  But Magda did not hear him. She turned and looked along the darkened row of houses. Clear as a cold cloudless day. It was as if she were waking from a dream. She had been so foolish. Foolish from the start. A foolish country girl—

  “We have to go,” Ivan said. “Maybe they will call the police.”

  “Where, Ivan?” she said quietly. “Where?”

  14

  A hungry fox padded across the snow under the avenue of bare lime trees on Hampstead Heath.

  It stopped.

  Smelled the air.

  Something had passed.

  Dropping its head, the fox trotted nervously on, its long russet back disappearing under a bank of brambles on the other side of the track.

&n
bsp; Slowly filling with snow, human footprints led away from the fence and under the trees. The footprints veered from the path—the trampled marks suggesting a moment of indecision. They trailed into the thicket, snow brushed from fallen branches marking their going. Far off, muffled by the trees, came the rising-falling wail of a police car making its way through the London night.

  * * *

  Magda stopped. They had come in thick among the undergrowth, branches tangled against the night sky.

  “Why didn’t she find a way to tell me, Ivan?”

  The few lit windows of inhabited buildings had melted away behind them. Under the trees the soft darkness enveloped them.

  “It won’t help thinking about that now,” he said. “Things don’t always turn out like you want them.” He pulled his hat down low. “Stay close and keep quiet. We’ll find somewhere to make a fire at least. Away from the road. We can get warm. Think what to do next.”

  She clung to his side. Every biting footstep seemed louder than the last. The things she had imagined, things from before, they had been left behind in Morochov. Why had Mama left London? It was as if nothing made sense anymore: the things that tied her to herself, even those ropes were fraying, and the threads were snapping.

  Little bits of good and simple truth had fallen away, even as the priest had said his words over Babula’s coffin. And then with every step along the river, and calling out in the dark of the forest. Nothing had been gained with stealing Stopko’s money or remembering the blood of his pony falling on the snow.

  She shook herself. Mama must be trying to get back home. And now she too must do the same. But back to where? And how?

  Ahead of her, Ivan gestured with his hand. Put his finger to his lips. She bent double and crouched close beside him. He battled his way under a holly bush and she followed. Down below them through the trees was a frozen lake. The smell of smoke drifted to them on the chilled air. Human voices rang out.

  With sparks spitting high and popping out in the smoky black, a large, untidy bonfire was burning at the water’s edge. The leaping flames glowed orange on the sparkling white that stretched out into the darkness beyond. Two young men sat beside the fire in an upturned wheelbarrow, drinking from a bottle.

  And out on the ice, beyond the flames, was a great gaggle of men. Someone turned to light a cigarette, a concentrated face caught in the light of a match.

  The crowd jostled. A stocky figure in a bearskin hat stood on a crate, shoulders raised above the throng: an angry conductor with a snarling grin across his face. “Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine—Ten minutes in the water!” His hand beat time as he peered into the melee: “Well done, lads!” he shouted. “But my money’s on Fat Ferguson!”

  The raucous shouting of the excited men rose up.

  “One down!” the ringmaster shouted. “Haul him out.”

  “What is it?” Magda whispered.

  The crowd parted and made way as something was dragged between them.

  A wet, naked man. His body shaking like a landed fish. The youths from the fire double-timed it over with the barrow and bundled the frozen body into blankets; wheeled him with bare feet dangling and bouncing over to the warmth of the fire.

  And Magda saw then—behind the parted legs—that a hole had been cut in the ice. The water a dark stain on the white. And in the water. Other men. Grease-smeared heads bowed in painful concentration. Holding themselves with elbows back against the jagged edge, clutching at a rope they could no longer feel in their frozen-numb fingers.

  The shouting rose again.

  “Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven—”

  “The Scot’s out! Just Ferguson and the Chinaman left!”

  The crowd roared in laughter.

  There was a splash. Another body, thin and brown, dragged out of the water and wheeled away to the fireside.

  The ringmaster urging on the crowd of onlookers. “Odds on. Twelve minutes on Ferguson. Hold in there, lad. Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine. Thirteen minutes! Get him out!”

  There was a huge cheer. Men crowded around waving bits of paper.

  “I think they are betting on how long the men can stay in the water,” whispered Ivan.

  The ringmaster’s voice boomed again. “Last round. Which one of you lads is gonna try their toes! Fifty quid a drop and another hundred if you win.”

  A Jeep crawled under the trees with headlights off. Two men got out. Swaggered to the group on the ice. The ringmaster stepped away from the crowd and handed over the takings.

  * * *

  “See over there. We can double back on ourselves without anyone noticing.” Ivan pointed to the far side of the lake.

  They slunk back under the trees, and the voices of the men on the ice faded behind them. Clambering up a bank, they arrived at a pathway.

  “We’ll freeze out here,” Magda said. “Where are we going to—”

  But Ivan was staring down at the edge of the track. The wind rattled the spidery branches above them.

  “What?”

  He gestured down underneath the trees. There was a dark patch on the snow. “There’s been a fire here.” His voice was low. “And not long ago. We’re not alone.”

  Magda glanced about nervously. Saw a wooden board on posts. “Look. There’s a sign.” She found the box of matches. Pulling off her gloves, she struck one, shielded the flame with her hand, and held it up. It was a map of the park. Still readable.

  “We’re here.” She pointed to the weather-faded picture. They studied it together. The match burnt to her fingers. She shook it and threw it to the ground. Pulled out another. “There. The path goes that way toward the road. But there are houses. In the park. Look. To the east of us. Vale of Health,” she said, reading the words.

  She looked at the side of Ivan’s face in the flickering light. “Shall we go there?”

  “Yes. We might find somewhere out of the snow. It will be better.”

  * * *

  A gap in the thicket led down a narrow path between the bushes. A swathe of snow carpeted a treeless clearing, and down in the hollow a low stand of bare hawthorn fringed a small body of frozen water. At the end of the clearing a small deer bounded with three leaps into the undergrowth.

  They trod silently along a narrow path. And then, almost in an instant, they stepped out onto a crescent of snow at the water’s edge. At their feet, a small abandoned dinghy attached to a taut, frost-rimed rope was entombed in the frozen water.

  The night clouds thinned; the moon glowing behind them cast a dull gleam on the iced pond. It was longer than it was wide—oval almost—surrounded on all sides by trees and bushes.

  Way back from the water’s edge the slab of a building rose up above bare hazel brushwood. Dark windows glowered from its tall, pale facade.

  “What’s that?”

  “Where?”

  Magda looked up at the building.

  “I’m sure I saw a light.”

  Ivan beckoned with his hand. “Just keep your eyes open.”

  They skirted along the wall of the building and came out onto a road. It was strange. A single street of houses in the middle of the park. Drifts of snow were piled against doorways. Nothing moved. There was not a light to be seen. Nor a sound to be heard.

  The single roadway disappeared under the trees. Ivan turned and looked back the way they had come. “This place is deserted. Why?”

  Magda sat down in the snow. “We need to find somewhere to sleep. I’m tired.”

  “We can sleep here. Break into a house.”

  “What about going back to the train station?”

  “No. This is better.” He put out his hand to pull her up.

  Perhaps it was then. A rope thrown down into the well. She looked up at him. How would she know what awaited her if she climbed to the top of it? But his hand felt strong and sure and she let it pull her up. In any case, she was too tired to argue.

  And at the end of the row of abandoned houses was one lo
w cottage on its own. Its windows were boarded up. And to the side of it was a wooden gate set in a high brick wall. They squeezed through into a courtyard at the back of the house. A lean-to shed abutted the back wall. Above it was a shuttered window under the eaves of the house.

  “Maybe there is someone here,” Magda whispered.

  “I don’t think so.” Ivan handed her his pack and pulled himself up on a water butt under the eaves. He climbed onto the roof and inched his way across the deep snow that quilted the tiles, edging carefully on all fours toward the window.

  Grabbing the window frame with one hand for balance, he gave a hard pull and with a loud clatter the shutters came open.

  “Be careful,” she whispered up at him.

  He turned his face away and elbowed the windowpane. The glass shattered loudly. He balanced there. Listening. Then reached a hand in and opened the latch.

  Magda watched as he slithered headfirst through the opening, his boots disappearing into the darkness. She heard the thump as he landed on the floor inside.

  “Ivan—” she called up nervously.

  His head appeared. “The matches.”

  She fumbled in her pocket. Found the box of matches. Threw them up. She heard a strike. The sound of his feet.

  “Ivan—”

  Nothing.

  “Ivan—”

  “Wait, I’ll open the door.” A brief glow from a lit match.

  She leaned against the wall of the shed. Closed her eyes. Hunger gnawed and rumbled in her guts. She felt a tiredness that was almost painful, blotting out the panic.

  How will you ever get back to what was before?

  That small glimmer of hope was fading so fast that she felt she would fall over right there.

  You are like an animal—hiding in the dark of this strange place.

  There was the sound of unlatching. The turning of locks in the door at the back of the house.

  And there Ivan stood. Match in hand.

  Maybe it had begun in the forest. Stirring his porridge. But then she had thought him so arrogant and rude. And he had stolen her food. Half her food. Laughed at her.

  An ache was growing like a painful tooth.

  She had never felt such a thing before.

  Ivan stepped out of the doorway, smiling.

  “Come on. It’s empty.”