I was too surprised to speak. I had emptied the lace fragments into my sewing bag along with Oskar’s gloves and left the beautiful oak storage box on the dresser in my room. The box was too heavy to carry, too bulky to fit in my knapsack. ‘Yes,’ I said finally. ‘I have them.’
My mother cleared her throat. ‘Good girl.’ She paused, worrying at her shawl with her fingers. ‘I know she asked you to take over the knitting group. And to look after her lace. I – I was never trusted with those things. I was not a good knitter. My stitches were clumsy. I was impatient. But I want your grandmother’s spirit to rest easy, knowing they are safe.’
She turned her face to the window so I could not see her expression, but her words circled around in my mind. I saw her suddenly the way she must have been as a child, sitting by my grandmother’s knee, growing more and more frustrated as the lace in her hands refused to flourish. My grandmother’s sharp voice commanding her to re-pick the rows she had muddled. My grandmother had always said that anyone could learn to knit, but we both knew this wasn’t really true. A real knitter had an eye for patterns, and hands that remembered. A way of looking further ahead than just the stitch or row of the moment. My mother had neither of those things. I could imagine her throwing down her work in a temper and never taking it up again, rejecting my grandmother’s traditions. How my grandmother would have been hurt, and how that pain might have hardened into distrust. When I was born, my grandmother must have seen it as a chance to try again. She had been more careful with me, perhaps, more patient. And to her delight, I had been the one with the eye, and my hands itched if I went too long without knitting. I could see now how Mama’s disappointment might have simmered into resentment. My grandmother and I had been close in a way she could not understand. Our knitting had bound us, as had my grandmother’s stories and the history she had brought to life through the hours we spent together. Those lace shawls and those tales had formed a bond between us that Mama could never break.
I looked at my mother anew, wishing I could apologise for the times Grandmother and I had laughed at her, or teased her about her crooked stitches, but I couldn’t make my mouth form the words I needed to speak.
Too late. Footsteps stirred the pebbles outside. Jakob pulled open the door and climbed up next to me and Papa clambered in on the other side. Squashed between my mother and Jakob, I found it hard to breathe. The air was close, tinged with sour sweat.
With a sharp pang, I thought of Oskar again. I would have to trust that he knew I’d not wanted to go; that we’d had no choice but to run.
Outside, the darkness had spread, eating up the fields. Cars and trucks were visible up on the road, their lights flickering. How many were carrying people back to their homes, where they would eat their meagre dinners and fall into bed, exhausted, unsuspecting of the fate that awaited them in a few hours’ time? The fatal knock, the indignity of being given only minutes to gather their things and pushed outside in their nightclothes. If only we could warn them… But as the lorry’s engine rumbled and I listened to the strained breathing of my family, Papa’s grunt as he shifted the gears and propelled the lorry away from the house, I pushed away the guilt that weighed on me. It was just as Papa said. It was our turn to run. We would escape. That was what mattered.
My father cursed.
Two sets of headlights had broken away from the road. They bounced across the ground as the vehicle drew closer, winding around the path that led through our fields. It was not a car, I realised, but an army truck. I felt my father tense beside me. His elbow dug into my ribs as he spun the wheel and sent the lorry bouncing onto the side of the road. The brakes squealed.
‘Out!’ He leaned past me and threw open the door. ‘Get to the forest now. Run!’
My legs were frozen.
The oncoming lights were dazzling. Tyres scraped on gravel as the truck closed the distance between us.
‘Erich?’ Mama’s voice quivered.
Papa grunted. ‘I’ll join you afterwards. Jakob!’ he barked.
Jakob shook himself then grasped my arm, forcing feeling back into my limbs. My feet thumped onto the earth. With Mama between us, we tore towards the forest. Mama stumbled; Jakob grabbed her coat and dragged her to her feet. He helped her when we reached the first fence, holding the wire apart so she could scramble through. Mud sucked at our shoes and caught at the edge of my skirt. Mama’s breathing was loud in my ears, sobs escaping her lips.
Behind us, doors slammed. I heard men’s voices, speaking guttural Russian. They grew fainter as we moved towards the edge of the forest, still ahead of us. The darkness there was thick, impenetrable.
We reached the last field, where the apple trees were spaced in rows, and flung ourselves against their sheltering trunks, Mama behind one, Jakob and I behind another.
When I peered around the tree I saw Papa on his knees between three men. They were shouting at him, their words echoing across the fields. Liar! Traitor!
One of the men reached into his pocket and produced a pistol. Almost casually, he aimed it and fired.
Papa crumpled. From the tree on my right, my mother’s scream rose up, shattering the night air. Blood seemed to flood every chamber of my heart at once. I thought my chest might burst. I heard a voice cry out. It was my voice.
‘Papa!’
I started to move. If I could reach him, I could help. I could save him.
Jakob’s hands gripped my shoulders tightly. I tried to fight him off. It was useless. I heard him whisper, but his words could not penetrate the thick fog of shock in my mind. What was he saying?
No.
I stopped struggling.
For a moment, everything was still. Then Mama was gone. She was running, slipping and sliding between the fence wires, heedless of the mud and the waiting men.
I felt Jakob tense behind me, ready to race after her. My own legs were burning, aching to run. But neither of us moved. Jakob’s grip relaxed slightly. His arm slipped to my middle, his hand searching in the dark until it found mine.
Helplessly, we watched Mama fall to her knees. She was sobbing, cradling my father’s head.
One of the soldiers shouted at her to get up, but my mother didn’t seem to hear him. He shouted again and then, as if losing patience, he raised the gun again and fired. Mama slumped forward.
I screamed, unable to contain the sound that burst from my mouth.
The men turned, and with them a torch beam bounced across the ground, illuminating the grass, the mud, the fences we had scrambled through.
Jakob and I turned as one and tore our way across the last field. The torch beam zigzagged across our path. Men yelled behind us. A shot exploded into a nearby tree. I heard Jakob grunt, saw him stumble and then right himself.
Together, we staggered to the edge of the field and through the last fence.
Footsteps squelched through the mud behind us.
I looked back. Figures were running through the field, closing in.
Jakob seized my hand and dragged me into the trees. In seconds, the light from the torch had vanished. The darkness of the forest had swallowed us whole.
Cornflower Stitch
Lydia
‘Olga.’
My nursemaid paused and looked back at me from the little path leading to the Partorg’s townhouse. The late afternoon sun threaded her white hair with silver. Tired rings circled her eyes but she seemed happy enough, pleased to have reached our destination at last. The Partorg’s residence stood behind her, a charming two-storey building with whitewashed walls rising above a sea of foaming flowerbeds.