Finally, several meters downriver, Franka springs up out of the water, spitting, gasping for air, tendrils of hair plastered over her eyes. “The basket!” Franka yowls, reaching toward a beige orb that has surfaced in front of her. She lunges, grasping at the handle, but the current is too quick. Dipping and weaving in the racing water, the basket disappears.
“Noooooo!” The panic in Halina’s voice severs the thin air. Without thinking, she drops her stick, holds her breath, and throws herself, arms outstretched, into the water. The cold is shocking. It slices at her cheeks, wraps itself around her like a suit of armor, and for a moment she’s paralyzed, her body frozen, a log caught in the current. Lifting her head, she gulps at the air and paddles fiercely, craning her neck to keep her chin above water. She can barely make out the basket, its handle bobbing like a buoy in rough seas, several meters downriver.
“Stop,” Franka wails from behind her. “Leave it!” But Halina paddles harder, her cousin’s pleas drifting farther and farther into the distance until all she can hear is the sound of her breath and the slap of water against her ears. She paddles desperately, scraping a knee on the riverbed. She could stand, but she knows that if she does the basket will be gone. Frog-kicking her legs, she trains her eyes downriver, fighting the numbness overtaking her body and the impulse to quit, to swim to the bank and rest.
As she rounds a slight bend, the river widens and for a brief moment the current slackens. The basket slows, gliding peacefully along an eddy, the water’s surface now as smooth and shiny as the lacquered lid of her parents’ old Steinway. Halina begins to close the gap. When the river narrows and the current picks up again, she’s within arm’s reach. Extracting the last few drops of strength left in her screaming muscles, she rockets her torso out of the water and lunges, one arm thrust forward, fingers spread wide.
When she opens her eyes she’s surprised to see the basket in her hand. Her extremities might as well be useless; she can’t feel a thing. She lets her feet sink to the riverbed and finds her footing. Standing slowly, keeping her body low to the water to resist the current, she wrestles her way along slippery rocks to the far bank, gripping the handle of the basket so tightly that her fingers, white at the knuckles, begin to cramp and she has to peel them loose with her free hand once she’s safely across.
On dry land, Halina collapses on the muddy bank, her shoulders heaving, her heart thrashing against her chest. Crouching, she peers into the basket. The food is gone. She slips her fingers into the slit in the lining, feeling for the panel of waxed canvas. The zloty! “They’re here!” she whispers, forgetting for a moment how terribly cold she is. She removes her coat and beats it against a rock before draping it over her shoulders. Her shivers come in spasms. They’ll need to find shelter soon.
Hurrying upriver, it’s only a few minutes before she hears Franka’s cry. “I’m here!” Halina calls, waving, her body still laced with adrenaline. Franka has made it across the river as well and is jogging along the bank in Halina’s direction. Halina holds the basket up over her head in triumph. “We lost the food, but the zloty are there!” she beams.
“Thank God!” Franka gushes, panting. She wraps her arms around Halina. “My foot slipped on a rock. I’m so sorry!” She takes Halina in. “Look at you, you look like a drowned cat!”
“So do you!” Halina crows, and under the steely blue light of the moon, numb with cold, dripping and shivering from their heads to their feet, they laugh—quietly at first—and then louder, until tears run from their eyes, warm and salty down their cheeks, and they can barely breathe.
“What now?” Franka finally asks, once they’ve regained their composure.
“Now we walk.” Halina slips her arm through Franka’s, blowing warmth into her free hand as they begin making their way east, toward the tree line.
As quickly as they’d set off, Franka stops. “Look!” she gasps. She is no longer smiling. “Flashlights!” There are a half dozen, at least.
“Red Army,” Halina whispers. “Must be. Kurwa. I was hoping they’d be gone by now. They must have heard us.”
“You knew they were there?” Franka’s eyes are wide.
“I didn’t want to scare you.”
“What should we do? Should we run?”
Halina bites down hard on the insides of her cheeks to keep her teeth from chattering. She’d thought about running, too. But then what? No, they’ve come this far. She pulls her shoulders back, determined to remain strong, outwardly at least, for Franka’s sake as much as her own. “We’ll talk to them. Come. We need to find warmth. Maybe they’ll help us.” Halina tightens her grip on Franka’s elbow, coaxing her on.
“Help us? What if they don’t? What if they shoot? We could swim downriver a bit, hide.”
“And freeze to death? Look at us; we won’t survive another hour in this cold. Look, they’ve seen us already. We’ll be fine, just be calm.”
They walk on, tentatively, into the constellation of flickering lights.
When they are ten meters from the soldiers, a silhouette from behind one of the lights shouts.
“Ostanovka!”
Halina sets the basket down slowly at her feet and she and Franka raise their hands over their heads. “We are allies!” Halina calls, in Polish. “We have no weapons!” Her mouth goes dry as she counts ten uniformed bodies advancing. Each holds a long metal flashlight in one hand, a rifle in the other; both are aimed at Halina and Franka. Halina turns a cheek to avoid the burst of white light boring into her eyes. “I’ve come to find my fiancé and my brother in Lvov,” she says, willing her voice to remain steady. The soldiers draw closer. Halina looks down at her wet clothes, at Franka, who is shaking with cold. “Please,” she says, squinting at the soldiers, “we are hungry, and freezing. Can you help us find something to eat, a blanket, some shelter for the night?” Her breath, caught in the light, escapes her in fleeting gray wisps.
The soldiers form a circle around the young women. One of them picks up the basket, looks inside. Halina holds her breath. Distract him, she thinks. Before he finds the zloty.
“I would offer you something to eat,” Halina continues, “but by now our lone egg has made its way to Ustylluh.” She shivers dramatically, allowing her teeth to knock together like castanets. The soldier looks up and she smiles as he studies her face, then Franka’s, surveying their wet clothes, their mud-soaked shoes. He is no older than me, Halina realizes. Perhaps even younger. Nineteen, twenty.
“You come to see family. And her?” the young soldier quizzes in rudimentary Polish, aiming his flashlight at Franka.
“She—”
“My mother is in Lvov,” Franka says, before Halina has a chance to answer. “She is very ill—she has no one to take care of her.” Her tone is so clear, so matter of fact, Halina must make an effort not to look surprised. Franka is an open book; the art of deception has never come easily to her. At least, not until now.
The soldier is silent for a moment. River water drips from the young women’s elbows, landing with a pat on the earth at their feet. Finally, the soldier shakes his head, and in his expression Halina can sense a hint of sympathy, or perhaps amusement. She can feel the tension dissolving in her neck, a bit of blood returning to her cheeks.