“Of course, I’ll help you in any way I can,” he replied. “But sometimes it will be impossible. There are a lot of troubled souls here, Mrs. Radford.”
“We got a glimpse of it this morning.” Martha nodded.
“There is someone else who could be of use to you. He speaks some English and a little German, too. He was a timber merchant in Warsaw before the war.”
“What’s his name?”
“Stefan Dombrowski. He lives in the same blockhouse as me: number fifteen.”
“Sergeant Lewis didn’t mention him.” Martha glanced at Kitty. “I wonder why not?”
“He’s a quiet man,” the priest said. “Like many people here, he doesn’t like to talk about the past. He built our little chapel. He spends his days felling trees for firewood—ironic for a man who used to buy and sell timber.”
“I imagine there are plenty of others capable of chopping wood,” Martha said. “Could you ask him if he’ll come and work with us?”
Stefan Dombrowski arrived at the office the next morning. He filled the doorway—his blond hair brushing the lintel as he stepped over the threshold. Martha couldn’t help noticing the well-muscled arms beneath the thin fabric of a shirt whose collar was frayed at the edges. He looked older than her, but not much.
“Miss Radford?” His eyes were very blue, very alert.
“It’s Mrs. Radford.” She held out her hand, wondering if his English was good enough to know the difference.
“Sorry.” He looked uncomfortable. She wondered if the priest had had to work hard to persuade him to come.
“That’s okay. Please sit down.” She gestured to the chair she’d placed on the opposite side of the desk.
“Now, Mr. Dombrowski . . .” She hesitated. If they were going to work together, she needed to know a little about him. But she was wary of appearing nosy about his past. “Father Josef tells me you speak English and German.”
He nodded. “I learnt English for my business in Poland. I traded with Britain before the war.” He looked at his hands, the fingers interlaced, resting on the desk. They were tanned from summer days spent outdoors, the knuckles rough and the cuticles ingrained with dirt. “The German, I picked up in Rathenow—near Berlin. I worked in a factory, making Heinkel bomber planes.”
“How long were you there?”
“Three years.”
It was hard to respond without sounding trite. “That must have been tough,” she said.
He looked up, his eyes meeting hers momentarily before he bent his head again. “I survived. Many did not. I learnt German—it helped me to live.”
“Will you help me?” she asked. “If I’m going to run this place, I have to understand the people who are living here, and I have to deal with the Germans, to organize supplies for the camp.” She waited for him to respond. When he remained silent, she said: “It’s a position of some responsibility, and that would be recognized. You would receive an extra allowance of cigarettes.” She had no idea if he smoked, but she knew that cigarettes were like currency in the camp. He could trade them for whatever else he needed or wanted.
“Yes, I can translate for you,” he said without looking up. “But cigarettes I do not want. To chop trees is harder, no? You give me more, I cannot look those guys in the face.”
“I understand,” she said. “But when we get started, you might change your mind. If so, you must tell me.” Martha stood up. “First of all, I’d like to see where everyone lives. Will you show me around the blockhouses?”
Kitty had taken over the job of giving out passes while Martha went to inspect the camp. She was glad she’d been able to watch Martha handling the people who’d come the previous morning: it would have been terrifying to be thrown into that kind of work without some knowledge of what to expect.
There was one person she suspected of trying to deceive her: a man who said he wanted to go to the nearby village to buy strawberries for his child, who was recovering from pneumonia. He held up a small cup made of silver, the kind of thing a baby might receive as a gift. He said he was going to trade it for the fruit.
It was a request that would melt any heart. But some indefinable aspect of his body language made Kitty wary of saying yes. But how could she tell if he was lying?
In a flash of inspiration, she asked him the name and age of his child. The momentary hesitation confirmed her suspicions. There was no child.