crushed his face, and her head dangled back and to the side, threatening to fall off her spindly neck. Her breasts, shrunken, sucked dry by hunger, were wrinkled pancakes pressed against her ribcage.
No one rushed to cover her. Or to claim her.
CHAPTER 15
Janek’s mother invited me in when I explained my visit. She said I looked faint and brought me a glass of water right away.
The studious-looking, wiry-haired young man was uncomfortable discussing Anna with me, but after I told him I suspected that she had been gravely ill, he confessed he’d had a quarrel with her over twenty zloty she’d borrowed from him and couldn’t pay back. They hadn’t spoken since early January.
‘Listen, son, why did Anna need the money?’ I asked.
‘She wouldn’t tell me,’ he replied, which made his mother smack the back of his head. ‘I swear, Mama!’ pleaded the boy, ducking away from her. ‘You know how secretive Anna could be. All she told me was that she was in bad trouble.’
Anna’s other close friend, Henia, lived on Pan?ska Street, near the Nozykow Synagogue, where my mother and I had attended services on high holy days. She answered my knocks dressed for school, in a pretty burgundy jumper and dark woollen trousers. Her cheerful face was framed by blonde braids, which made her look as though she’d stepped out of a Bavarian children’s story. In her hand was a half-eaten hard-boiled egg.
Her mother called out to ask who was at the door.
‘A friend!’ the girl shouted back. To me she mouthed, ‘Wait downstairs.’
She came rushing into the hallway a few minutes later. ‘I’m late,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk as we walk.’ She buttoned her coat and put on a black leather aviator’s hat with sheepskin earflaps, tucking her braids underneath. She looked like a teenage boy.
‘I have to cross over to the Big Ghetto to get to school,’ she explained, ‘and the German guards used to grope themselves when I passed the gate. A big ugly one even tried to kiss me once. Now, they leave me alone.’
She burst out through the door as if to take on the Nazis and the rest of the world, holding her book bag tightly against her chest – undoubtedly to hide the sleek rise of her breasts.
I liked Henia immediately. And do you know why, Heniek? Because survival was shining in her light brown eyes. I blessed her for that.
‘Do you know what was wrong with Anna?’ I asked her.
‘Wrong?’
‘I have reason to believe she was ill.’
‘She wasn’t ill – the idiot got herself pregnant.’
‘That’s impossible. A doctor who examined her told me she wasn’t.’
‘Then he lied to you.’
‘Why would he do that?’ I demanded.
‘Why wouldn’t he?’ she said, irritated. ‘What right do you have to know intimate details about Anna’s life?’
I remembered Mikael begging me not to force him to lie. ‘But her mother said she had gotten dangerously thin,’ I told Henia.
‘Yeah,’ the girl replied, ‘that was quite a feat, wasn’t it? She had everybody fooled.’
I stopped. Henia didn’t. ‘So you’re certain she was pregnant?’ I called after her.
She turned round. ‘Yup,’ she replied casually, walking backwards. ‘Three months along. If you looked really closely, you could kind of tell in the curve right here, even though she wasn’t much more than a skeleton.’ She designed a contour in front of her belly with her hand.
I caught up, then grabbed the strap of her book bag to keep her from rushing ahead. ‘Did her parents know?’
‘No. Anna didn’t trust them. She wanted an abortion. But we didn’t know where to go. We were afraid that if we asked her doctor or any other adult, it would get back to her parents. So she just stopped eating.’
‘But sooner or later, her condition would have become obvious.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Honec, but we have to keep walking – if I’m late for school, the director won’t let me in.’
I let go of her strap. Henia shifted her book bag to her other shoulder and we started off again. ‘Anna read somewhere that starvation can cause a miscarriage,’ she told me. ‘So she could hide her pregnancy
‘So did she lose the baby?’
‘No. Though we didn’t talk for a couple of days before she was killed, so I suppose she might have lost it then – or even found someone to give her an abortion.’
‘Do you know if she intended to tell Pawel’s mother?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘And did Pawel ever give her a ring or a bracelet – something valuable?’
Henia shrugged. ‘If he did, she never showed it to me.’
‘Is it possible that Anna got his name tattooed on her hand? Or maybe his initials?’
Henia burst out laughing. ‘Do you think she wanted to look like a sailor, Mr Honec?’
We were crossing the scruffy park in Grzybowski Square, steering around the low-hanging branches of a hazel tree stripped naked by winter. Henia’s expression turned troubled. ‘There’s something that’s been bothering me,’ she said hesitantly. ‘But I don’t know if I should tell you. Anna wouldn’t like it.’
‘She’s been murdered. What else could go wrong?’
‘Plenty! So why don’t you tell me what you want to know about her and I’ll see how much I want to say.’
I spoke of my nephew’s death until she gripped my arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she interrupted, ‘but please don’t tell me any more about Adam. Since Anna’s murder… Look, what’s been bothering me is that she refused to tell me who the father was, and that started me thinking. I thought it was probably Pawel, but she wouldn’t confirm that – or deny it.’
‘Who else could it have been?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. But listen, whatever you do,’ she said, grimacing, ‘you can’t tell Anna’s parents about any of this.’
‘Why not?’
‘Mrs Levine has a temper. She drinks. And she used to beat Anna with a wet towel.’
‘Why a wet towel?’
‘It hurts like hell but doesn’t leave marks.’ Henia sneered. ‘Anna always said her mother was clever –
‘Yes, I know,’ I replied bitterly; Dorota had fooled me; she’d been protecting herself, not her husband. The unflattering photograph of her daughter had been meant to show me that Anna deserved the abusive treatment her mother meted out.
‘No one knows what I’m telling you,’ Henia continued. ‘I’m not even sure Anna’s father knows how bad things were, though she was furious at him for never protecting her. I don’t know how Fraulein Rottenmeier will react if you let on that you know what she was up to. And if you tell her Anna was pregnant…’ Henia groaned to indicate the disaster that would engender.
I stopped to consider whether Anna’s own mother might have been involved in her murder. It seemed impossible, yet so did Adam’s death.
‘No more questions?’ Henia asked.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Bye, Mr Honec,’ she said cheerfully, and then she strode away.
After a few seconds, I called out to her. ‘Henia, did you lend Anna money?’
She hesitated, then rushed on.
‘You have to tell me!’ I shouted.
