The Winter Guest by Pam Jenoff Page B

can fix it for you.” As Michal disappeared into the bedroom, she went to the kitchen to fetch her sewing kit.
    There was another knock at the door. Ruth turned. The Jewish woman must have come back, like one of the persistent Roma beggars that passed through the village each spring, so used to being told “no” that they had almost become immune. Had she not believed that Ruth did not know where her child had gone, or was she seeking something else now, money perhaps or food?
    Ruth walked to the door and started to open it to tell the woman that she could not help her. Then she stopped, halted by an unseen hand. She peered through the crack in the door. It was not the Jewish woman, but a strange man in uniform. She inhaled sharply. Had the Nazis finally come to Biekowice? No, not a German, she realized, taking in the insignia on his chest. He was a policeman from My´slenice. But she was hardly relieved. Biekowice had no police force of its own, and the uniformed officers from the regional headquarters seldom ventured into the village. For a minute, she considered not answering. But he could see through the window that the fire blazed merrily, belying the fact that someone was home.
    She swiveled back. The girls were on the floor, quiet and obscured from sight at the window. “To the loft,” Ruth whispered low and urgent over her shoulder to Michal, who, hearing the knock, had stuck his head out from the bedroom. She waved her hand frantically behind her. She could not imagine what the policeman wanted, but she sensed it best they not be seen. She picked up Karolina and threw her at Michal, whose eyes widened. “Take Dorie, too, and don’t make a sound.” Too surprised to question her order, he obeyed.
    She kicked Karolina’s blocks under a chair with her foot, then turned back to the door and opened it, heart pounding. “D-dzie´n dobry,” she managed. The man was fortyish and scarcely taller than her, with a barrel chest and paunched midsection.
    “I’m Sergeant Wojski, from the Voivoda police department,” he puffed. He did not bother with formalities, but spoke to her in familiar language, asserting his power. Sergeant. Under other circumstances, the man would be a desk clerk. But the war had given power to those who were most willing to cooperate, not those who were most fit.
    He did not produce credentials, but took a step forward. Ruth held up her hand, stopping him. “There’s illness in the house,” she lied, not yielding. He retreated to the doorstep. “Can I help you?”
    “Let me speak to your husband,” he instructed in a voice too firm to be called a request.
    She hesitated, then shook her head. “It’s just me and my sister.” The children had been out of sight, but she prayed he had not heard them before knocking. There were records of the whole family, including the children, if one looked in the provincial office. It seemed wise, though, not to draw attention to the youngsters, living here without parents—especially Michal, who was as tall as a sixteen-year-old. In a flash, she imagined him conscripted to help with the war effort, given one of the awful jobs that Helena had said were relegated to the youngest, like scampering to the front lines to collect the unexploded shells.
    “Your parents?” Clearly the notion of a woman living alone here was unfathomable.
    “Died,” she blurted out. She felt instantly guilty. Mama was alive, but it seemed like the safest thing to say, and correcting it now would just raise more questions.
    “Papers?” the man asked, questions staccato and unrelenting. As he extended his hand, a glint of something silver flashed about his wrist. A watch. Even from a distance she could tell it was expensive, too grand for someone of his station, and she wondered where he had gotten it.
    She turned toward the fireplace, feeling the man’s eyes on her as she moved, and pulled from her bag her kennkarte, the identification card she had been issued with the