Free Spring Will Be Ours by Sue Gee Page A

guard.
    â€˜Suddenly a voice rang out over Skawiński’s head.
    â€˜â€œHi, old chap! Get up. What’s the matter with you?”
    â€˜The old man opened his eyes, and gazed bewildered at the man standing before him. Remnants of the visions of his dreams struggled in his brain with reality. Finally, the visions grew faint and vanished. Johns, the harbour watchman, was standing in front of him.
    â€˜â€œWhat’s all this?” Johns asked. “Are you ill?”
    â€˜â€œNo.”
    â€˜â€œYou didn’t light the lantern. You are going to be dismissed from the service. A boat from San Geromo has been wrecked on a sand-reef. Luckily no one was drowned. If they had been, you’d have been tried for it. Get into the boat with me. You’ll hear the rest in the Consulate.”
    â€˜The old man turned pale. Indeed, he had not lit the lantern that night.
    â€˜A few days later, Skawiński might have been seen on the deck of a vessel going from Aspinwall to New York. The poor old man had lost his post. New ways of a wanderer’s existence had opened again before him. Again the wind had blown the leaf away to cast it forth by land and sea, to make sport of it at its will. During those few days the old man had grown very shrunken and bent; only his eyes shone. But in his breast he carried into the new roads of his life his book, which from time to time his hand grasped as though fearful lest that, too, should be taken from him.’
    There was a silence, then the soft sound of the book being closed and put down. They lay without speaking; when Anna opened her eyes she could see the dark shapes of moths and insects bumping blindly against the canvas outside, struggling to reach the warm yellow glow of the lamp. She thought of the great cone of light from the lighthouse lantern flung out over the black night sea, of the old man, exiled, losing himself and his soul in the dissolution of sky and water, until the strange parcel of Polish books arrived, and he remembered who he was.
    â€˜Tata?’ said Jerzy.
    â€˜Mmm?’
    â€˜He forgot to light the lamp …’
    â€˜Yes.’ Their father stretched, ran his fingers over his balding head. He was looking rather drawn. ‘A very sad and beautiful story. And now I think it’s time we went to sleep. We’ll move on tomorrow.’ He pulled on his jacket. ‘I’m going outside for a minute, Jerzy. Coming?’
    Anna listened to their footsteps as they went to relieve themselves; she undressed rapidly, and pulled her jumper over her nightdress. Then she huddled inside her sleeping bag.
    Jerzy put his head through the flaps and came in. ‘There’s a wonderful sky.’
    She sat up, and shifted in her bag to the opening. ‘Oh, yes!’ An explosion of pale stars was splashed across the blue-black above the trees: she gazed at them, and felt herself shrink, like the lighthouse keeper, in the vastness of the world.
    â€˜Where’s Tata?’
    â€˜He’s gone for a walk – I think he wants to be by himself for a bit.’
    â€˜Oh.’ She withdrew quickly into the tent again, and wriggled into the sleeping bag, up to her neck. Jerzy pulled on pyjamas and jumper, slid inside his, and they lay for a few minutes in silence.
    â€˜Anna? What did you think of the story?’
    â€˜It made me want to cry.’
    â€˜I don’t understand it … does he really mean Poles care too much about the past? That we neglect the present?’
    â€˜But of course he cared – he’d lost everything.’
    â€˜I know.’
    Anna lay gazing up at the moths outside, still buffeting themselves against the canvas, searching vainly for a way to reach the light. Tata had been out for quite a while. Their tent, which had felt so warm and safe, seemed suddenly a very small and defenceless place, pitched in the emptiness of the woods, beneath the night sky, and the uneasy feeling which