Free The Bronski House by Philip Marsden Page A

rode alongside for a few minutes, then trotted up to Helena: ‘Good morning, Hela.’
    ‘Good morning.’
    There was silence between them.
    ‘Panna Hela, you mustn’t worry.’
    ‘I am not afraid.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    Helena nodded, looking across at him. He wore a peasant
czapka
with the peak pulled down to his forehead. She thought: what tiny kind eyes he has.
    ‘Dobrze!’ he cried suddenly and, reaching into his coat, pulled out a pocket-knife which he pressed into her hand. He was galloping back up the hill before she had a chance to thank him.
    At noon they reached the Niemen. A narrow wooden bridge stretched across it and, while they waited for the Broński carts, Helena climbed down the mossy bank.
    It was, she remembered, a hot and windless day. She stared into the water; the ink-blots of scattered clouds lay on the surface. Helena broke them with her fingers. She rolled up her sleeves and pushed her arms into the water. The water was cool and oily, and she splashed it on her face. No, she was not afraid. Quite the reverse. She was excited. She was overwhelmed by the familiar sense of something approaching.
    She took out the pocket-knife and rinsed it; the haft was inlaid with mother-of-pearl and set into it, in silver, was a worn Broński crest. That a Broński should be capable of kindness, any kindness, was quite a shock to her.
    Pan Rymszewicz’s hunting-horn sounded and they carried on. They left the banks of the Niemen and plunged into dark forests where the sun slanted through the trees and the air was filled with the smell of pine resin. The noise of the convoy was louder among the trees, a noise of creaking axles, cracking reins and low voices.
    At dusk they arrived in front of a small
dwór.
An elderly couple stood on the steps. Two ridgebacks jumped forward a few paces and then, seeing the size of the convoy, stood still and barked.
    That night Helena ate in a vaulted dining room full of family portraits. She was given a room in the top of the house where the moon streamed over the boards and she slept deeply. At dawn Pan Rymszewicz’s hunting-horn sounded out across the park and the whole convoy set off down a pale road that skirted the forest. They climbed and came out of the trees. Topping a low ridge, Helena saw the chalky ribbon of the road for miles ahead, meandering across the plain, splitting in two the brown smudges of small villages, dipping into hidden valleys, following the perimeter of a distant forest before burrowing into it.
    The days fused one into the next. They travelled for one week, two weeks, a month. Sometimes they stopped for a few days before continuing their eastward trek. The forest banished all thought of war. Helena felt happy, exhilarated. Each day was different. Her mother withdrew the barbed constraints that normally surrounded her. She relaxed; the progress of the convoy imposed its own loose authority and, in years to come, Helena looked back on those weeks in the forest, seeing the horses’ twitching ears, the arc of the wooden hames, hearing the creak of carts, and knew that this was the closest she ever came to any sort of freedom.
    One night they stayed in a cabin on the summit of a small hill. All around them were camped the carts. Helena watched the fires stretch towards the trees. She left the cabin and walked through the camp. The smoke weaved up towards the great starry sweep of the Bird’s Way. She felt like Queen Jadwiga wandering among her troops.
    On another occasion, in late September, they passed through a village. An ox-cart blocked the road and, while waiting for it to be cleared, the Belorussian villagers gathered round the wagons. Their children were barefooted and the men had dirt in the lines of their faces. Pan Rymszewicz ordered them to clear the way but they pressed in closer.
    He pulled his team off the road and led the convoy round towards the back of the village. He cracked a whip at two men who lunged for his reins. Others surged