A Square of Sky by Janina David

Author:Janina David [Janina David]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781906011970
Publisher: Eland Publishing
Published: 2012-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

23

DAYS PASSED, unchanging and empty. Snow fell. I thought with longing about Tosia and Yola. If only we were together. How wonderful it would be to have them in the same house. We could visit each other, we could talk, or we could just sit with our arms around each other. Even Yola, who would never admit to any softer feeling, even she in the end showed that she was capable of affection. So perhaps she would not mind being embraced now? I wondered anxiously what had happened to her, and remembered the last occasion when we were together.

It was soon after Mother began to go out again after her miscarriage. Yola and Tosia still visited daily to ask if they could do anything for her and whether I was free to go out. On that day Mother allowed me to go with them.

It had been raining heavily for the last two days and the street was full of puddles. We made our way to a bombed site where, among the rubble, stood a bench on which we used to hold our conferences. On that day the bench stood on an island, surrounded by a deep lake of mud.

‘Bet I can jump right on the bench,’ challenged Yola.

‘Bet you can’t,’ I answered automatically.

‘Don’t, Yola, you’ll fall in and ruin your clothes,’ said Tosia, always practical.

Yola stepped back a few paces. A short run, a jump and she was flying through the air. She reached the bench, hit her shins on the seat and fell back into the mud.

For a moment she sat dazed, up to her waist in water, wiping mud from her face. Then slowly and painfully she rose and, stiff-legged, waded towards us. Her dress clung to her, coated with mud, there was mud in her hair and mud squelched in her shoes. We considered her with horror.

‘I can’t go home like this’ – her voice sounded small, like a little girl’s. ‘Mother will kill me.’

‘Come home with me,’ I offered without thinking. ‘My mother will do something.’

She agreed meekly and as we walked back I wondered what I had done. I knew what would happen if I returned home in such a state. How could I be sure that the same fate would not await Yola? Had Mother changed so much?

I opened our door with trepidation. Mother stood rooted to the floor as she considered the scarecrow beside me, and then burst into a peal of laughter. In a moment we joined her. In another moment a bucket of water was heating on the stove and Mother was helping Yola to strip. She stood her in our largest basin and scrubbed her and then, deaf to Yola’s protests, packed her into our bed, a shawl tied around the skinny shoulders. While she washed her clothes and heated more water for tea we laughed and chattered and I felt I wanted to kiss and hug them both in turn. When Yola’s clothes were hung over the stove Mother sat on the bed and had tea with us.

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