'Comrade,' be said, and saluted. He looked at Wladek.
'My son,' she explained.
~Of course, comrade.' Ile saluted again.
Wladek was in Moscow.
Despite the trust he had placed in his new - found companion, his first instinct was to run but as one hundred and fifty rubles was hardly enough to live on, he decided for the time being to stay put. He could always run at some later time. A horse and cart was waiting at the station and took the woman and her new son home. The station master was not there when they axTived, so the woman immediately set about making up the spare bed for Wladek. Then she poured water, heated on a stove, into a large tin tub and told him to get in. It was the first bath he had had in over four years, unless he counted the dip in the stream. She heated some more water and reintroduced him to soap, scrubbing his back, the only part of his body with unbroken skin. The water began to change colour and after twenty minutes, it was black. Once Wladek was dry, the woman put some ointment on his arms and legs, and bandaged the parts of his body that looked particularly fierce. She stared at his one nipple. He dressed quickly and then joined her in the kitchen. She had already prepared a bowl of hot soup and some beans. Wladek ate the veritable feast hungrily.
Neither of them spoke. When he had finished the meal, she suggested that it might be wise for him to go to bed and rest.
'I do not want my husband to see you before I have told him why you are here,' she explained. 'Would you like to stay with us, Wladek, if my husband agrees?'
Wladek nodded thankfully.
'Then off you go to bed,' she said.
Wladek obeyed and prayed that her husband would allow him to live with them. He undressed slowly and climbed on to the bed. He was too clean, the sheets were too clean, the mattress was too soft, and he threw the pillow on the floor, but he was so tired that he slept despite the comfort of the bed. He was woken from his deep sleep some hours later by the sound of raised voices coming from the kitchen. He could not tell how long he had slept. It was already dark outside as he crept off the bed, walked to the door, eased it open and listened to the conversation taking place in the kitchen below.
'You stupid wornan.' Wladek heard a piping voice. 'Do you not understand what would have happened if you had been caught? It would have been you who would have been sent to the camps.'
'But if you had seen him, Piotr, like a hunted animal.'
'So you decided to turn us into hunted animals,' said the male voice - 'Has anyone else seen him?'
'No,' said the woman, 'I don't think so.'
'Thank God for that. He must go immediately before anyone knows he's here, it's our only hope.'
'But go where, Piotr ? He is lost, and has no one,' Wladeks protectress pleaded. 'And I have always wanted a son.'
'I do not care what you want or where he goes, he is not our responsibility and we must be quickly rid of him.'
'But Piotr, I think he is royal, I think his father was a Baron. He wears a silver band around his wrist and inscribed on it are the words . . .'
'That only makes it worse. You know what our new leaders have decreed.
No tsars, no royalty, no privileges. We would not even have to bother to go to the camp, the authorities would just shoot us.'
'We have always wanted a son, Piotr. Can we not take this one risk in our lives?'
'With your life, perhaps, but not mine. I say he must go and go now.'
Wladek did not need to listen to any more of their conversation. Deciding that the only way he could help his benefactress would be to disappear without trace into the night, he dressed quickly and stared at the slept - in bed, hoping it would not be four more years before he saw another one. He was unlatching the window when the door was flung open and into the room came the station master, a tiny man, no taller than Wladek, with a large stomach and an almost bald head covered in long strands of grey hair. He wore rimless spectacles, which had produced little red semicircles under each eye. The man carried a paraffin lamp.
He stood, staring at Wladek. Wladek stared defiantly back.
'Come downstairs,' he commanded.
Wladek followed him reluctantly to the kitchen. The woman was sitting at the table crying.
'Now listen, boy,' he said.
'His name is Wladek,' the woman interjected.
'Now listen, boy.' he repeated. 'You are trouble, and 1 want you out of here and as far away as possible. I'll tell you what I am going to do to help you.'
Help? Wladek gazed at him stonily.
'I am going to give you a train ticket. Where do you want to go?, 'Odessa,' said Wladek, ignorant of where it was or how much it would cost, knowing only that it wa3 the next city on the doctor's map to freedom.