The Booker

‘It was cold and damp, and I could hear something breathing in the dense darkness’. The first line of Andrei Vasala’s stunning new novel about Polish immigrants to the UK. A dramatic and heart warming story of a brave journey across war-torn Europe. The novel…‘

He put The Times down on his desk and leant back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling. It was 50 years ago this year. And it was time that the truth was told.

Andrei stared down at his hands, slowly turning them over on the white cotton tablecloth. The speeches dimmed into a background hum. In his mind’s eye he could still see her face, all these years later. Her expressions when the oil lamp picked him out, huddled in the corner of the barn. There was shock at first. Then fear. And then horror. A rigor mortis grimace that appeared to scream; how can this wreck of a human being still be alive!

“Don’t look so worried”— he started as a hand squeezed his forearm and the soft voice of Nicole whispered in his ear—”you might not win.”

He turned to her and attempted a smile.

“I think, my love, that I might.” He snorted. “It was cold and damp, and I could hear something breathing in the dense darkness. They’re saying that it’s the best first line since Moby Dick.” He picked up his glass of water and drank it all back. “I’m odds-on apparently.” He glanced at her, just as Roger Amathwaite, the panel’s chair, took to the stage. “And now, after the publisher insisted on me removing that period of the book… I know what I must do.”

The applause was loud, prolonged, and Andrei felt sincere. As he stood he kissed Nicole on the cheek and then whispered in her ear. “For Agnieszka.”

She nodded. “For Agnieszka.”

Standing before the microphone Andrei stared out at the hushed audience, all beaming back at him. Well most. There were a few authors whose smiles were a tad strained. He cleared his throat, swallowed and leant slightly forwards into the microphone.

“Thank you, my friends, for this honour. I am humbled. However,” and he attempted a smile, “I have a confession to make.”

There was a low hum of amusement and interest.

“This book,” and he pointed over his shoulder at a large screen that was displaying a copy of  the front cover. “Is not a complete work. There is a section that was not included in the final copy. It is the story of the woman to whom this book is dedicated.

“Fifty years ago this year Agnieszka Simcov was murdered. She was murdered because she was thought to be hiding a Jew, despite the fact that they never found him,”—Andrei looked out across the still and silent audience, not used to winners’ speeches beginning quite like this—“me. A nineteen year old me.”

A sharp intake of breath.

“I was in Treblinka for six months. I wasn’t killed immediately, like tens of thousands of others, I was kept alive, to be slowly worked to death.

“It was late summer in 1943, and we were collecting wood, six of us, with three guards. We were deep in the forest that surrounded the camp, wearing next to nothing but the whip marks down our backs.” Andrei shook his head. “What happened next was bizarre. It took me at least twenty minutes, with my blunt axe, to hack away at this pine branch. By the time I had dragged it back to the clearing they were gone. All of them. They had returned to the camp without me.”

Andrei snorted and grinned. No one grinned back.

“I’d always thought the German army sent the thick ones to guard us, but it seemed that none of the three guards could count any further than five.”

The merest of dry chuckles.

“So I walked away. And walked west. And walked. And walked. I kept to forest tracks where I could and only broke cover to cross fields or steal food from barns at night. But it was getting colder, and I could no longer sleep outside, even with the coat and clothes that I had stolen from a shed in Blochy.”

Andrei paused, a quick glance at Nicole.

“I don’t think that Agnieszka knew I was there. I think that she came close enough to the barn to hear me. Probably snoring. Apparently,”—a nod at Nicole—“something I still do.”

A few more chuckles. A few glances at Nicole who was rolling her eyes.

“I think that I must have scared her half to death, and I braced myself for the scream, readying myself to run. But, instead” and Andrei blinked quickly  a couple of times, “she just put her first finger to her lips and bade me, silently, to lie back in the hay and cover myself.

“Two hours later, at first light, she came back with a loaf of fresh bread and a pitcher of warm milk. My first warm food in weeks. And she kept me in that barn. Hidden. Safe.”

Andrei stared down at the microphone and then at his hands. He blinked rapidly. He glanced out across the room at Nicole. She nodded slowly.

“Then, one inevitable day, the soldiers came. I heard them comb the barn, but from my hiding hole beneath the hay they never found me. But then I heard the screaming. I was frozen with fear. I knew that I should help. I knew that I was being a coward, hiding away.

“And then the screaming stopped. And I was even more terrified. I heard the soldiers leave. I waited another hour until it was just starting to get dark. I crept out into the yard. There was silence. I tried to look through the kitchen window, but it was too dark inside to see anything. I returned to the barn, to the lamp that was always kept just inside. I eased open the back door of the farmhouse, a centimetre at a time, expecting it to be yanked open and for a German soldier to grab me by the collar, or just step back and shoot me.”

Andrei closed his eyes. And he could see it, the scene in the kitchen. As he had seen it every night ever since. He tried to swallow, but nothing happened. He coughed and reached for a glass of water. Opening his eyes he stared out at the authors and agents and press. Their faces were fixed on him, most pale. No one moved. No one reached for a glass of wine, or nibbled at their half finished desserts.

“They… They had done unimaginable things. I couldn’t bare to look. But I couldn’t bare not to. I could not leave her like that, across the table. Nor could I bury her.

“So I carried her upstairs. I lay her on her bed. I washed and tidied her. I then went back downstairs and took the photos of her husband and son, both dead, from the mantlepiece above the fire in the tiny living room. I placed the pictures at her heart, her hands clasped to them. I stood back by her bedside, bowed my head, closed my eyes and prayed to God that they were reunited now. That she was in peace. This woman,  Agnieszka Simcov , to whom I owe everything that it’s possible for one human to owe another.”

Andrei opened his eyes. And before him he saw a hundred faces, all different, but conveying identical expressions. All staring, wide-eyed, back at him.

“With a broken heart, and a permanently damaged soul I turned away. But then I heard a noise from the bedroom next door. I froze and listened. Someone was moving in there. They were trying to be silent, but that was impossible in this old house. I knew that it couldn’t be a soldier. Bizarrely my first thought was that it was a dog.”

Andrei shrugged and a few people snickered.

“But it wasn’t.” Andrei fixed his gaze on a single face in the audience. “Hiding under the bed, trembling, was her fifteen year old granddaughter. My wife.”

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